The conservative New Democracy party stormed to victory in Greek parliamentary elections on Sunday with voters giving reformist Kyriakos Mitsotakis another four-year term as prime minister.
Centre-right New Democracy was leading with 40.5 per cent of the vote and 158 seats in the 300-seat parliament, interior ministry figures showed after most of the votes were counted.
The party was more than 20 points clear of Syriza, a radical leftist party that won elections in 2015 at the peak of a debilitating debt crisis and ran the country until 2019, when it lost to New Democracy.
"This freely given support only increases my responsibility to respond to peoples' hopes. I personally feel an even stronger obligation to serve the country with all my abilities," Mr Mitsotakis told cheering crowds at New Democracy headquarters in downtown Athens.
Sunday's vote was a humiliating defeat for Syriza, which lost more than 30 MPs.
Fringe parties of the political left and right - including an anti-immigrant party calling themselves the Spartans - got a foothold in parliament.
"This result is negative for democracy and society," Mr Tsipras said, referring to far-right parties winning votes.
For Syriza, he said, a "great and creative historic circle had closed."
"We have to look upon that with pride," he said.
Mr Mitsotakis, 55, a former banker and scion of a powerful political family, has promised to boost revenue from the vital tourist industry, create jobs and increase wages to near the European Union average.
Mr Mitsotakis, who was prime minister from 2019 until stepping down in favour of a caretaker premier following an inconclusive May vote, has vowed to push ahead with reforms to rebuild the country's credit rating after the debt crisis that wracked the nation for a decade.
Sunday's vote was the second in the past five weeks, as a first poll on May 21 held under a different electoral system failed to give a single party absolute majority in parliament.
The system used in Sunday's poll gave the leading party bonus seats depending on voter support.
Zoe Constantopoulou, a leftist politician who spent hours regaling Greece's lenders at the height of the country's debt crisis in 2015 when she was parliamentary speaker, saw her party, Plefsi Eleftherias, gain 8 seats in parliament.
"Whether we are eight or nine MPs, I'm good enough for 100 (MPs)," she said.
The Covid-19 pandemic and a deadly rail crash in February exposed shortcomings in Greece's health and public transport systems. But a cost-of-living crisis and economic hardship have more recently topped voters' concerns.
"I expect a lot (from the new government)," pensioner Giorgos Katzimertzis told Reuters.
"The main thing is the health system, the economy, so we can live (decently) because things are difficult. I am a pensioner, I was on the fire brigade, and now I don’t have a dime."
Sunday's election was held in the shadow of a migrant shipwreck this month in which hundreds are feared to have perished off southern Greece. One of the worst such disasters in years, it has exposed the parties' divisions over migration.
The Spartans party, which said Greece was threatened by uncontrolled migration, was the surprise of the campaign. It was set to gain 4.7 of the vote and up to 13 seats in parliament, based on the early results.
The group was catapulted from relative obscurity after support from Ilias Kasiadiaris, the frontman of the now-banned Golden Dawn far-right party. His own party was barred from the elections and he endorsed the Spartans from jail.
A Twitter post from Mr Kasidiaris showed him beaming, wearing a t-shirt with a Spartans logo and giving the thumbs up, super-imposed against jail bars.
How to improve Arabic reading in early years
One 45-minute class per week in Standard Arabic is not sufficient
The goal should be for grade 1 and 2 students to become fluent readers
Subjects like technology, social studies, science can be taught in later grades
Grade 1 curricula should include oral instruction in Standard Arabic
First graders must regularly practice individual letters and combinations
Time should be slotted in class to read longer passages in early grades
Improve the appearance of textbooks
Revision of curriculum should be undertaken as per research findings
Conjugations of most common verb forms should be taught
Systematic learning of Standard Arabic grammar
Breast cancer in men: the facts
1) Breast cancer is men is rare but can develop rapidly. It usually occurs in those over the ages of 60, but can occasionally affect younger men.
2) Symptoms can include a lump, discharge, swollen glands or a rash.
3) People with a history of cancer in the family can be more susceptible.
4) Treatments include surgery and chemotherapy but early diagnosis is the key.
5) Anyone concerned is urged to contact their doctor
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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