Instant analysis: Why New Democracy won
At New Democracy HQ, satisfaction over the wider than expected winning margin was evident.
Party officials told Kathimerini that a 4-year effort was vindicated as was the way New Democracy conducted its election campaign.
An early, instant analysis can point to three factors that led to New Democracy’s historic win.
1) Throughout the campaign, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke about the future, prioritizing a positive narrative, while his opponent focused on the negative. This allowed Mitsotakis to set specific goals and hone his message.
2) Related to the first point: every New Democracy operative stayed on message and avoided serious mistakes.
The main opposition failed to match the discipline; the last-minute slip by ex-minister George Katrougalos, who said that the self-employed could be slapped with higher taxes, contradicting his own party’s statements was the most serious instance of off-message performance.
3) A third reason was that New Democracy kept its 2019 voters, who were not disappointed in Mitsotakis’ performace. According to New Democracy officials, the government’s trustworthiness in following its policies, even under perpetual conditions of global crises, combined with Syriza’s inability to offer a set of convincing policy alternatives led to Sunday’s result.
