Diaspora vote confirms New Democracy lead
With all 17,258 valid votes cast by Greek citizens abroad in Sunday’s general election counted, conservative New Democracy emerged as the most popular party overseas with 43.23% of the vote, a slight increase on its 42.62% share in the May election.
Left-wing SYRIZA came in second place, its 16.61% share down almost 2.5 points on May.
In contrast to its poor performance nationally, Yanis Varoufakis’ MeRA25 came third in the diaspora vote, taking 12.01%, a one-point increase on May.
The Communist KKE also increased its share of the vote by a point, coming fourth on 11.92%, ahead of socialist PASOK, on 6.91%.
Zoe Konstantopoulou’s Course of Freedom and the ultra-Orthodox Niki, which both entered parliament, took 2.86% and 2.16% of the diaspora vote, respectively. Greek Solution, which also entered parliament, took just less than one percent (0.94%). The extreme-right Spartans party, which elected 12 MPs, received no votes abroad.
New Democracy was the first party in almost all countries, with the exception of Spain and Portugal, where SYRIZA topped the poll, and Denmark, where the Communist KKE took the lead from SYRIZA with a quarter of the vote.
The conservatives proved most popular in the United Arab Emirates, where they were backed by 80% of Greek voters.
Some 25,610 Greeks were registered in the special electoral rolls abroad. Polling stations were set up in 85 cities in 35 countries.
