New Democracy sweeping regions as well
As exit polls for the European Parliament elections put opposition New Democracy firmly in the lead over ruling SYRIZA in Greece, the conservative party also appeared to be trouncing the leftists in regional elections, also held on Sunday, along with the municipal ballot.
With over 8 percent of the vote counted, New Democracy appears poised to take 11 of Greece's 13 regions, including Attica.
With 5 percent of the vote counted in Attica, conservative candidate Giorgos Patoulis was given 36.2 percent over SYRIZA incumbent Rena Dourou's 20.5 percent and third-placed Yiannis Sgouros' 18.3 percent.
The 58-year-old ND frontrunner has been head of the influential Athens Medical Association and of the KEDE Central Union of Municipalities since 2006, and also served as mayor of the northern Athens suburb of Maroussi from 2007.
Dourou, 44, became Attica’s regional governor in 2014 and has come under heavy fire for the deadly floods in Mandra in 2017 and the east Attica fires in the summer of 2018, in which more than 100 people died.
Sgouros, the 66-year-old center-left Movement for Change candidate, meanwhile, was Attica’s regional governor from 2010 to 2014.
New Democracy is also performing well in Central Macedonia, with Apostolos Tzitzikostas seen at a landslide 62.5 percent against second-placed Christos Yiannoulis, a journalist who was handpicked by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras as SYRIZA's candidate, with 10.8 percent.
Tzitzikostas has been governor of the region of Central Macedonia since 2013 and is one of the more vocal critics of the Prespes Agreement, calling it “problematic and damaging to the nation.”
KINAL candidate Christos Papastergiou is seen in third place with 7.6 percent of the vote.
