The 2019 regional elections in Greece: Both regionalized and nationalized

ABSTRACT

In May 2019, regional elections were held in Greece, simultaneously with municipal and European elections. The regional elections were placed right at the end of the national electoral cycle and national elections were planned to be held four months later. In general, the institutional and structural setting was favouring a nationalized, second-order character of the 2019 regional elections. Nevertheless, most of the patterns identified in the election outcomes point towards regionalization rather than nationalization. Hence, the 2019 regional elections in Greece were both regionalized and nationalized.

KEYWORDS:

• Regional elections
• Greece
• electoral cycle
• regionalization
• nationalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There was no such difficulty in the European elections because they are held in a single, nationwide constituency.

2 An analysis of municipal elections is not included due to the fact that their localized character and the preference of most candidates to run as ‘independent’ would require an extensive and detailed research outside the scope of the present report.