Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras head to second round of elections for mayor; Piraeus, Volos mayors re-elected

Candidate mayors for Thessaloniki, Patras, and Ioannina will go to runoff elections on October 15, as they did not manage to reach 43% of the vote with partial results as of 21:30 on Sunday.

On the other hand, Iraklio (Crete), Larissa, Volos, and Rhodes have a new mayor each. Leading in Iraklio is Alexis Kalokerinos (47.51%), who appears to consolidate his lead with an 11-point difference from Michalis Karamalakis. Larissa, a city affected by the recent storms, ousted its mayor Apostolos Kalogiannis for Athanassion Mamakos (50.25%). Volos re-elected its mayor Achilleas Beos (56.59%), with Nikos Papapetros trailing. Finally, Rhodes re-elects its mayor Antonis Kabourakis (44.35%) with a wide margin from Alexandros Vassilios Koliadis and Nikos Geronikolos.

In the hard-hit Karditsa area, Vassilis Tsiakos (47.89%) is elected, and so is Georgios Sakellariou (44.56%) in Palamas, which was submerged in the last flood.

In Athens, mayor Kostas Bakoyannis came close but did not reach the threshold of 43% (41.27%), heading to the second round. Piraeus’s Ioannis Moralis is elected overwhelmingly with 69.50%.

Singular Logic

According to voting systems operator Singular Logic, an assessment by its general manager Dimitris Bakakos sees six of Greece’s largest cities electing mayors in the first round, leading the rest to runoffs next Sunday.

Based on a 27% count of all votes nationally, he confirmed that Piraeus, Iraklio of Crete, and Larissa have a new mayor as of today (Oct. 8), while Athens, Thessaloniki, and Patras will require a second round between the top two contenders.

As Bakakos said, the 43% threshold established for mayoral wins in these local government elections means that 80-86 cities will head to the second round, while in the previous local government elections that had a 50% threshold, 219 cities needed to go to runoffs.