A close adviser to main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday reiterated that the prospect of snap elections being declared in the country is very high, given that leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will “choose the most opportune time when he believes he can achieve the best possible result of a ‘manageable’, for him, defeat.”
In fact, Makarios Lazaridis, who is the center-right ND president’s communications adviser, predicted snap elections between January and March 2019, during comments to an Athens-area radio station.
Tsipras and most of his top ministers, deputies and his right-wing coalition partner have frequently and forcefully said general elections will only come at the end of the current four-year term, which means in the autumn of 2019.
Although local government and European Parliament elections are set for the spring of 2019, the Greek prime minister appears weary of declaring a snap election when his radical leftist SYRIZA party is shown as trailing ND by high single-digit and double-digit percentage points in practically all mainstream opinion polls for the past year and a half.
The junior coalition partner, the small right-of-center Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party, also appears as a long-shot to re-enter Parliament – needing more than 3 percent of valid votes in a general election – at least, according to opinion polls.
