"Greek stocks and government bonds rally at the open as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis secured surprisingly strong support in Sunday's election, fueling optimism for market-friendly reforms." With these words, Bloomberg comments on the market's reaction to the election results.

The publication highlights that the centre-right New Democracy of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis received almost 41% of the vote against around 20% of the left-wing SYRIZA party of former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. "While he failed to secure a majority in parliament, analysts are confident he will secure a one-party government in about a month, when new elections are expected to be held."

The Athens Stock Exchange's General Index rose as much as 6.7% early Monday, extending 2023 gains to 29%.

The investment grade

Bloomberg writes that the election was seen by analysts and investors as the last obstacle standing in the nation's path to regaining the investment grade it lost 13 years ago, and a Mitsotakis victory was seen as the most market-friendly outcome. In 2022, Greece's debt to GDP ratio fell faster than any other European country.

"The vote result puts Greece firmly on track to secure investment grade, possibly before the end of the year," commented Wolfango Piccoli, co-chairman of Teneo Intelligence in London. "While such an upgrade is largely discounted by investors, it will be an important moment as a stigma that has existed since late 2010 will disappear."

The yield on Greece's 10-year government bond fell about 9 basis points to 3.933%. The rate fell more than 100 basis points from last year's high, narrowing the spread significantly to 1.45.

Over 20 points is the difference between New Democracy and SYRIZA based on the first estimate of the final result by the Ministry of the Interior in 40% of the Territory.

Incumbent New Democracy (ND) appears set for a first-past-the-poll showing in Sunday’s Greek general election, with the first exit poll results presented by the country’s most popular broadcaster, Mega Channel, showing the center-right party with a projected 36 percent to 40 percent of the vote.

The voting of Greeks abroad for the parliamentary elections has been completed. So far the Ministry of the Interior has an image of their participation in the polls until midnight on Saturday (Greece time) for all countries where electoral divisions were set up except the USA and Canada, as due to a large time difference the electoral process there was ongoing until the morning hours.

In particular, out of 20,970 registered, 16,827 voted and 4,143 abstained. That is, the participation rate (excluding USA - Canada) was 80.2%.

In Great Britain

Of the approximately 170,000 Greeks who live permanently in the United Kingdom, they finally managed to register 4,876 people on the special electoral rolls. This is the majority of Greeks abroad, not only in percentage but also in absolute number, who declared that they want to vote in their place of residence.

The vast majority of them are people up to 45 years old. Many of them settled in Britain in the last decade, while many voted for the first time in their lives.

As the Greek ambassador in London, Mr. Ioannis Tsaoussis, pointed out, "the voting was conducted smoothly and without any problems at all in all 12 electoral divisions created in the United Kingdom."

In Cyprus

With a participation rate that exceeded 90% for the Greeks of Cyprus, the voting for the elections of May 21 was completed.

Voters came to the five polling stations set up in Nicosia, Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos, from 07:00 to 19:00.

Out of a total of 1,462 registered in the special electoral rolls, 1,340 voted, a percentage corresponding to 91.6%.

More specifically, in the first electoral division of Nicosia, 397 out of a total of 438 voters voted. In the second electoral division of Nicosia, 438 out of 474 voted for them.

In Limassol, out of a total of 255 registered, 227 voted. While in Larnaca, out of a total of 212, 198 voted.

Finally, in Paphos, 80 of the 83 registered voted for the Greek elections.