ND votes for new leader on Sunday

    Main opposition New Democracy (ND) votes for its new leader on Sunday, to succeed former prime minister Costas Karamanlis, with voting extended, for the first time, to all registered members of the party. The three candidates, Dora Bakoyannis, Antonis Samaras and Panagiotis Psomiadis, wound up their campaigns on Friday night.

    Organising committee chairman Dimitris Sioufas said that election of the ND president by the party's grass roots is "an important conquest of direct democracy", and called on members to turn out on Sunday so as to "consolidate this (conquest) with the widest possible participation" in the election.

    A total of 1,039 voting stations have been set up throughout the country, while 64 voting stations have been set up in other European countries, which will be linked on-line with the elections supervisory committee at the ND headquarters on Rigillis street, as will be all the polling stations.

    Voting will begin at 7:00 a.m. Sunday and close at 7:00 in the evening, but Sioufas has clarified that the closing time may be extended in specific polling stations in the event that lines of voters were still waiting their turn to cast their ballot at closing time.

    First results will begin to be broadcast after the returns are in from 20 percent of the polling stations, although they will not be representative of the final outcome, according to Sioufas.

    The three candidates made their final campaign appearances on Friday evening. Former foreign minister and one-time Athens mayor Dora Bakoyannis addressed a rally at Kotzia Square in downtown Athens, former culture minister Antonis Samaras addressed a tathering at the Zappeion Hall in central Athens, and Thessaloniki prefect Panagiotis Psomadis spoke to a gathering in Serres, northern Greece.

   

    Caption:The three candidates for the main opposition New Democracy (ND) party leadership Antonis Samaras (L), Panagiotis Psomiadis (center) and Dora Bakoyannis (R). (ANA=MPA/M. Marogianni).

   

   

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