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The second of two protected witnesses who had alleged that politicians had taken kickbacks from pharmaceutical giant Novartis did not keep a scheduled appointment with the parliamentary committee probing the handling of the Novartis scandal.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis is out to transform New Democracy from a center-right party with clear references to the traditional parliamentary Right, into a centrist, liberal political party. The idea is to turn ND into a party with loose ideological principles which will nevertheless be capable of securing majorities in Parliament by making the requisite adjustments.

The meetings scheduled by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for Friday with the leaders of the country's opposition parties on actions taken by his government on key national issues as well as the outcome of his visit this week to the United States, where he met with President Donald Trump, are essential.

Ruling New Democracy (ND) leads by a wide margin over main opposition SYRIZA in the first poll conducted by MRB after the national elections earlier this year.
Asked who they would vote if elections were held now, 36.4 percent of respondents said ND, versus 21.9 percent for SYRIZA.

Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras on Monday defended the economic record of his leftist administration, while accusing the conservative government of indulging in populism.

In the first session of center-right New Democracy's parliamentary group on Friday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called on MPs to "work more and talk less."

After receiving a standing ovation from ND MPs, Mitsotakis said he was moved that the party secured a strong parliamentary majority with 158 MPs, remarking that it was the largest in many years.

Just over 50 percent of respondents were positive or "probably positive" about the outcome of the 7 July general election that swept New Democracy to power while 46 percent were negative or "probably negative" according to a Kappa Research poll conducted between 9-11 July

As the son of a former conservative prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis could hardly be called a political outsider, yet despite the fact that the scion of one of Greece's three political dynasties was personally hugely underestimated he managed to methodically transform conservative New Democracy into a credible modern liberal political party and bring it power, according to a lengthy politica

Center-right New Democracy surged to a decisive victory in general elections on Sunday, paving the way for leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis to form a comfortable majority government this week. 

New Democracy has garnered a solid parliamentary majority according to exit polls that give Greece's conservative party a landslide 12 percentage point lead over left-wing SYRIZA.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is scheduled to be sworn in as Prime Minister by President Prokopis Pavlopoulos at the Presidential Mansion at 1pm tomorrow, 8 July.