New Democracy party

Fredi Beleri, the jailed ethnic Greek mayor-elect of the southern Albanian municipality of Himare, has been elected as an MEP with Greece's ruling New Democracy party in Sunday's European elections. 

Seven parties won seats in the European Parliament in Sunday's election, which showed significant gains for Greece's far-right parties, according to official results released on Monday.

The Ethnic Greek Minority in Albania celebrates as the elected mayor of Himara came in 3rd place on the New Democracy party ballot

Near complete results in Greece show the governing center-right New Democracy party comfortably ahead in the EU Parliamentary election with just under 28% of the vote, but with a poorer showing than the 33% it won in the previous election which the party leadership had set as a bar for Sunday's poll.

Main opposition SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis on Sunday appeared optimistic, despite the fact that his party fell short of the target set before the European elections.

"We managed to shrink the gap [from New Democracy party] from 23% to 13%," he said in his first statements on the electoral result outside of the party's headquarters.

More than one 10th of the Greek electorate remains undecided in the final stretch to Sunday's elections for the European Parliament, according to an opinion survey.

A painting by Konstantinos Parthenis of the Virgin Mary and Child, combining a sense of piety with fluid Art Nouveau forms, looks over Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis as he works on the puzzle of governance at his desk. "It's the Virgin, in a modern version. This painting could be said to encompass the history of modern Greece," he remarks.

Fredi Beleri, an ethnic Greek mayor-elect in southern Albania recently sentenced to two years in prison for vote-buying, and a candidate for the upcoming European Parliament elections with Greece's ruling New Democracy party, has accused Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama of manipulating justice to prevent him from assuming his duties and to undermine his candidacy.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis expressed his confidence that his New Democracy party will win the European elections during a speech in Giannitsa, a city in northern Greece, on Friday. 

The "correct and fast administration of justice is an integral part of liberal democracy," Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has told MPs in the context of a debate on a new Justice Ministry bill, adding that his government wants to see cases "finalized within 600 to 650 days."