Ruling New Democracy (ND) might have failed to achieve its publicly stated target of receiving over 30% of the popular vote on Sunday evening’s European Elections, but the Greek expats gave the conservative party a hefty victory of nearly 30 percentage points over its main political rival of SYRIZA.

After the completion of tabulation of 100% of 36,645 (73% participation) mail-in ballots of the 50,204 citizens who registered to vote on the relevant platform, ND garnered 40.17% of the votes (14,455 ballots), compared to SYRIZA’s 11.14% (4,010 ballots).

Electoral officials sorting mail in ballots from abroad

Photo-Officials sorting mail-in ballots Elections

Interestingly, leftist MeRA 25, led by Greece’s ex-Finance Minister under Alexis Tsipra’s SYRIZA government, Yanis Varoufakis, which received 2.5% in Greece, was the third most popular pick among the Greek expatriates, getting 9.22% of the votes (3,318 ballots).

The remaining votes were allocated as follows in European Elections:

– KKE: 8.74% (3,145 votes)
– PASOK – Movement for Change: 8.72% (3,139 votes)
– New Left: 4.85% (1,745 votes)
– Hellenic Solution: 2.37% (852 votes)
– Niki: 2.27% (817 votes)
– Course of Freedom: 2.11% (760 votes)
– Cosmos: 2.03% (729 votes)
– Democrats: 1.54% (555 votes)
– Voice of Logic: 1.48% (534 votes)