Athens: Greeks will vote on Sunday to choose a leader who will no longer be limited to guiding the nation's economy from a back seat for the first time in more than ten years.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the conservative prime minister, is running for re-election after a strict regime of spending restrictions imposed by international bailout lenders ended last summer.

The unassuming Harvard grad, who was equally at home speaking English as his native Greek, produced unexpectedly strong growth, a sharp decline in unemployment, and a nation on the verge of regaining investment grade status on the international bond market.

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International Monetary Fund debts were settled early. It was once assumed that the 55-year-old Mitsotakis would win reelection with a landslide. But as Greece's voters and political parties emerge from a protracted struggle for survival, his center-right New Democracy party may find it difficult to win back the majority.

Christina Messari, a cab driver in central Athens, waited patiently in stop-and-go traffic near the Greek parliament as tourists wheeled bags around enormous crimson banners that the Greek Communist Party had erected for its primary election rally on an unusually hot day.

The 49-year-old compared the past four years to watching a heart monitor: "Up then down... when business improves, prices go up, so you stay in the same place."

Between 2010 and 2018, 280 billion euros ($300 billion) were injected into the Greek economy by European governments and the IMF to keep the country in the eurozone. They demanded harsh cost-cutting measures and reforms in return.

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Greece's household incomes were severely damaged by the severe recession and years of emergency borrowing, which resulted in a massive national debt that last December reached 400 billion euros. It will probably take another ten years for household incomes to recover.

After the political and economic turmoil of the bailout era, the average Greek was worn out and fell into private debt, low wages, and job insecurity.
 Before joining her husband as a cab driver, Messari lost her bakery business during the crisis. They turned to package delivery during pandemic lockdowns to make ends meet.

In order for people to live with some dignity and not just work to pay their bills and pay taxes, she believed that certain things needed to change.
Following a Feb. 28 rail accident that killed 57 people, many of them university students, and battered the government narrative of acting as business-oriented modernizers, Mitsotakis lost a long-standing double-digit lead in polls.

In northern Greece, a passenger train collided with an approaching goods train that was inadvertently put on the same track. It was later discovered that train stations had outdated and inadequately staffed safety infrastructure.

Following the discovery of spyware on the phones of prominent Greek politicians and journalists, the European Parliament opened an investigation into a murky surveillance scandal. At a time when political consensus may be desperately needed, the revelations increased mistrust among the nation's political parties.

Six political parties, from nationalists who oppose NATO to a Communist Party that has been outspoken in its praise of the Soviet Union 32 years after its fall, are expected to gain national representation.

The Supreme Court forbade the extreme right-wing Greeks Party, which was established by a jailed former lawmaker with a history of neo-Nazi activity.

The fiery leader of the left-wing Syriza party and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras, 48, is in charge of the opposition. The rail disaster and the wiretapping scandal have been major talking points during his campaign.

According to opinion polls, the election on Sunday won't have a clear winner thanks to a newly implemented proportional representation system. It might be necessary to hold a second election in early July, after which the previous system—which gave the winning party a bonus seat in parliament—would resume.

Even so, according to recent polling, Mitsotakis may be forced into a coalition, with the once-dominant socialist Pasok party—which nearly vanished during the crisis—holding sway over the government.

Thodoris Georgakopoulos, editorial director of diaNEOsis, an independent think tank in Athens, claims that "we don't have a consensus culture in our political system, it's more zero-sum: If you lose, I win."

With the three largest political parties, New Democracy, Syriza, and Pasok, all publicly pledging to maintain fiscal responsibility and further European Union integration, he claimed that Greece has a unique opportunity to create bipartisan decision-making.

Another 10 years will pass during which bailout loans will be subject to a grace period of relatively low annual repayment bills, according to him. "By then, we must have figured out a new productive model for the country."

The justice system, education system, and health sector reforms have all been saved for last because they will be the most challenging, he continued. Finding the necessary consensus among the political forces of the nation will be the difficult task during these elections so that these extremely difficult reforms can be implemented.

For the 300 seats in the unicameral parliament that are up for election on Sunday, more than 9.8 million Greeks are eligible to cast ballots. For the first time, the voting age will be lowered to 17 years old. Additionally, Greek nationals living abroad will now be able to vote in the nation where they currently reside.

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22,000 voting precincts' polls will be open for 12 hours starting at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT). According to the Interior Ministry, 80% of the votes should be tallied by 10:00 p.m