Until recently, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, appeared unassailable. He was the poster boy of the European centre-right: the politician who had kept opponents at bay while, elsewhere, populism had cannibalised mainstream conservatism; the technocrat who had ushered in an era of stability and reform after years of economic and social crisis.
Twenty months into his second term, a wave of protest over a train crash – on a scale not seen in decades – could not have been predicted. Nor, perhaps, could the cries of “resign!” that resonated from the crowd outside the Athens parliament on Friday as MPs filling its red-carpeted chamber inside called Mitsotakis a “danger to democracy” before a late-night vote of confidence in his government.
