Polling stations open for Greece second round general election

Greek voters head to the polls again in an election where conservative front-runner Kyriakos Mitsotakis is seeking a second term and an absolute parliamentary majority to form a "stable government".

Polling stations opened for the second round of general elections in five weeks at 0400 GMT (7:00 am local time) on Sunday while the first exit polls are expected at 1600 GMT (7:00 pm local time) when polls close.

The 55-year-old Harvard graduate, who steered Greece from the coronavirus pandemic back to two consecutive years of strong growth, had already scored a thumping win in an election just a month a go.

But having fallen short of five seats in parliament to be able to form a single-party government, Mitsotakis chose to ask 9.8 million Greek voters back to the ballot boxes.

Mitsotakis, who hails from one of Greece's most influential political families, had trounced his next nearest rival, former leftist prime minister Alexis Tsipras, by more than 20 percentage points in the last vote.

As election rules this time round would accord up to 50 bonus seats to the winner of the vote, Mitsotakis's New Democracy party is widely projected to emerge victorious.

The main danger facing him would be a larger no-show rate at the polls because of the perceived foregone outcome.

Urging his supporters to turn up at the polls, he has warned of the possibility of a third election if he fails to get a majority.

"I hope we don't have to meet again in early August," he told Skai TV hours before a campaigning blackout began Saturday, adding that "this is no joke".

"All the gains we have made must be consolidated and continued," he said.

'Blank cheque'

Tsipras, whose call for wage hikes has so far failed to garner momentum, has warned against giving Mitsotakis a "blank cheque" to carry out a "hidden agenda" of policies unwinding social benefit policies.

Yet Tsipras remains for many Greeks the prime minister who nearly crashed Greece out of the euro, and the leader who made a dramatic U-turn from a vow of abolishing austerity to signing the country on to more painful bailout terms.

Having already lost four electoral contests to Mitsotakis, a fifth defeat on Sunday could end up costing Tsipras his top job at his Syriza party.

Most devastating for Tsipras is that many young people, who traditionally vote left, deserted them for the conservatives in the May 21 vote.

For Fenia Georgiakouda, 29, the left needs to "listen to the concerns of young people and try to mobilise them with new ways of action and participation" if it is to see a revival.