“I know what I must do and how to do it, and I will move on with it posthaste”, assured the Prime Minister, through his statement from Maximou mansion. Whereas last week he made statements outside his party’s office, today he made them within his desk, from his position as Prime Minister, sending a message that the government is stable, and continues onwards.

“With their vote, the people sent us a message but shot down any plans of overthrow”, he stated and added: “We have gone through two difficult years during my term. I travelled across Greece. I know the problems, I know what I must do and how to do it, and I will move on with it posthaste”.

According to Mr. Samaras “despite the problems, the government withstood extreme attacks”.

“Those who wanted instability and uncertainty coupled with anarchy, have failed. The slogan ‘We vote today, they leave tomorrow’ fell on deaf ears. The opposition party has not raised its rates since national elections of 2012, and they still sought to lead us to premature elections…”, he underlined and added: “This is confirmed by the fact that in local elections, SYRIZA has utterly failed. The government remains the one that supports stability and development, that keeps pulling the country out of the crisis and correcting any wrongdoings. We managed, these two years, to keep the country standing, and now we are exiting the crisis. Today, we prevented the nightmare of going back to the misadventure we have already experienced, and which we are overcoming today”.

New Democracy: The addition of ND and ELIA parties’ rates are higher than the rate of SYRIZA

The coalition government calmly received the exit polls and the early official results.

The Prime Minister is currently at Maximou Mansion with his close associates. He will be making a statement when the situation has been further clarified both in relation to the European elections and the regional/municipal elections as well. Government staff executives informally mentioned that “the initial data belie the high expectations that SYRIZA and its president had hoped for prior to the elections. The overthrow he had pursued and had set as its aim, is not confirmed either by European, or regional/municipal results. New Democracy has high rates, while its coalition partner ELIA (PASOK’s combination) also stood its own ground. The sum of the two parties in the coalition is greater than SYRIZA whatever its margin from the New Democracy party may be.

For the government, the issue of government stability is no longer necessary to be raised, and what Mr. Tsipras hoped for, in early national elections will not happen. The ND party, however, states that it will clearly study the message sent by the polls and that they will take it into account, moving forward. They also consider PASOK being able to acquire a higher-than-expected percentage another positive.

They note, however, that this result comes after a long period of difficult political decisions when the country was only just stabilized and the first macroeconomic results were visible in the recent exit to markets and the recent upgrade of the Greek economy. This has not yet translated to society as a whole, since the benefits have not spread out yet. They add that in the coming months, the situation will improve, unemployment will further be reduced, while there are hopes of a rise in tourism and increased investment.

This, of course, is the optimistic interpretation. The government has tough decisions ahead of it since there are still memoranda-based obligations and debt sustainability talks are still ongoing. The course of the government will depend heavily on whether a trend towards SYRIZA for national elections will form, combined with an expectation of a change in government. It is also of particular importance, on how European partners will receive SYRIZA’s lead.