2019 Crete regional elections

The 2019 Cretan regional election took place on 26 May 2019, simultaneously with the rest of Greece. The election was for all 51 elected seats of the Regional Council of Crete as well as the Regional Governor.
This was the third Cretan regional election and the incumbent Governor ran for a third consecutive term.
The ballot resulted in the election of Stavros Arnaoutakis, the incumbent Governor, as Regional Governor with 61% of the votes. The center-right candidate, Alexandros Markogiannakis, came in second with 27 percent. The KKE candidate, Emmanouil Syntychakis, received 6 percent of the vote. The socialist list supported by LAE, the far-right list supported by Golden Dawn and the anti-capitalist list supported by Antarsya also gained representation in the council.

Electoral system

According to the new electoral system introduced by the SYRIZA government, to become a Mayor or Regional Governor, one of the candidates must receive 50% + 1 of the votes. In areas where no candidate achieved the required percentage in the first round, a second round of elections was held between the two leading candidates one week later, on June 2. For the seat distribution in the council, the system of simple proportional representation was applied.