Greek party leaders voted in the elections on Sunday sending divergent messages on the state of the nation and its future.
A joint exit poll conducted by six polling agencies will be published as soon as voting concludes at 19:00 local time. A first estimate of the vote count is expected at about 20:30.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis voted at a school in Kifissia, making the following statement:
“Today we are voting for our future. We are voting for higher wages, we are voting for more and better jobs. We are voting for a more efficient National Health System, for a society with fewer inequalities, for a stronger country, with an important role in Europe, with protected borders.”
He added: “Elections are the celebration of democracy. Today, the responsibility for governing the country passes to you, the citizens, but I am absolutely sure that tomorrow, an even better day for our country will dawn.”
Greek elections can bring change, Tsipras says
“Change is today in the hands of our people,” main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader, Alexis Tsipras, said on Sunday.
He underlined that “the citizens have in their hands the chance to implement the majority’s demand to change the course of the country. To leave behind a hard, difficult four-year period of inequalities, injustice, job insecurity, home foreclosures, indignity for pensioners, targeting young people.
“To leave behind an arrogant government that does not feel the needs of the many and to pave the way for a government of progressive cooperation in a program of social justice,” Tsipras said.
PASOK-KINAL party leader Nikos Androulakis voted in Arkalohori, on Crete, a village that was damaged by a devastating earthquake in September 2021.
Androulakis stated that “the time of the sovereign Greek people has come,” adding: “I call every Greek with hope and optimism to support this new effort we are making and I pledge that I will strive with all my strength for a strong social state that will reduce inequalities”.
Communist Party of Greece (KKE) general secretary Dimitris Koutsoumbas voted on Sunday after 10:00 in his home city of Lamia.
In statements, Koutsoumbas noted that “the Greek people have tried everything. Especially, in the last decade they have been through a lot. Now they have acquired extensive, massive experience. We invite the people to go to the polling stations and vote for KKE, which will be the force for making the Greek people strong the next day.”
The head of MeRA25 Yanis Varoufakis voted in Perama, Piraeus. “A magical moment which ensures there is hope, nothing more. A hope of sovereign decision of our people once in four years,” the former Finance Minister said.
“People’s incomes are less than half what they were 13 years ago. We have ‘lost’ almost a million children who continue to move abroad.
“Nevertheless, this hope, I believe, will bring results today. It will give its place to something more solid,” he added.
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