Conservatives Claim Victory in Greek Vote : Elections: Mitsotakis forecasts a parliamentary majority. It is the third try in 10 months to get a single-party government.

Conservative leader Constantine Mitsotakis claimed victory early today in national elections, saying he will form a majority government to break a sapping political stalemate that has left Greece perilously adrift.

Mitsotakis’ right-of-center New Democracy Party easily outdistanced Socialist and Communist opponents in voting Sunday. However, it lacked an assured majority in the 300-seat Parliament when Mitsotakis addressed a 4 a.m. press conference.

Needing 151 seats for a majority in the 300-seat Parliament, New Democracy had 150 in nearly complete returns as dawn approached today.

While his jubilant supporters paraded in honking procession through downtown Athens streets, Mitsotakis told journalists that he expects to win one or two additional seats in closely contested districts where final returns were still being counted.

“I believe we will have a parliamentary majority, and this is where I start,” Mitsotakis said. “The Greek people have given victory to New Democracy. Once again, we celebrate our victory.”

Sunday’s cliffhanger vote marked the third attempt in 10 months to end the political deadlock in a nation that is starkly and stubbornly divided between left and right.

With 91% of about 8 million votes counted, New Democracy had 47.4% of the vote and 150 assured seats.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said New Democracy might pick up one or two more seats as final votes were tabulated for an election in which seats were assigned proportionately.

The Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or Pasok, headed by former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, 71, was running second with 38.5% of the vote and about 124 seats.

The Communist-led Coalition of Left and Progress led by 74-year-old Harilaos Florakis finished third, with 10% and about 19 seats.

Minor parties shared the remaining seats. Four of them were pledged to the Communists and Socialists as part of a pre-election agreement between the two leftist parties. The three other victors--an environmentalist, a Muslim from a border area near Turkey and a disaffected former New Democracy deputy from Athens--said in their campaigns that they would vote with the Socialists and Communists.

In stalemated elections last November, New Democracy won 148 seats with 46% of the vote. Pasok trailed with 41% and 128 seats. The Communists had 11% and 21 seats. Minor parties won the remaining three seats.

In claiming victory today, Mitsotakis promised that his government would “guarantee political stability” for Greece and be “a starting point for economic recovery.”

In his campaign, the 71-year-old Mitsotakis railed against the “incompetence and corruption of eight years of Socialist rule” under Papandreou.

“We are broke. Unless we have a strong, single-party government to sort out the economic mess, there will be chaos,” Mitsotakis warned.

Papandreou and the Communists say a conservative government would squeeze hardest on workers, undermining hard-won social and economic benefits. “Great chaos” will follow a conservative victory, Papandreou said.

“We are headed for a critical period,” Papandreou told supporters today. He went to bed without conceding defeat, saying that the election was too close to call.

Economic crisis has marched in lock-step with political uncertainty in the Greek flux. Last month, the European Community joined the International Monetary Fund and other international agencies in voicing public alarm at Greece’s economic decline.

Urging “immediate and drastic measures,” EC President Jacques Delors warned in a sharply worded letter that Greece’s solvency and its future status in the community were at risk. Direct subsidies from the EC account for more than 5% of Greece’s gross domestic product.

Inflation, at 17.8%, is three times the average of Greece’s partners in the European Community. Its debt of $25 billion is nearly half the gross domestic product.

New investment is sparse, tax avoidance is legendary and as much as a third of the economy is unrecorded--under the table. More than 40 state-run businesses lose drachmas by the bushel. The government’s budget deficit, a record $12.5 billion last year, threatens to reach $19 billion this year.

Greece’s perilous political drift began in elections last June, when New Democracy won 145 seats, surpassing Pasok as the largest party and toppling Papandreou from office after eight free-spending years.

The largest financial scandals in Greek history, Papandreou’s health after triple bypass surgery in 1988 and his liaison with Dimitri Liani, a former flight attendant half his age, provided opponents with ample ammunition against the wasp-tongued former Berkeley professor.

Still, his opponents fell short. Unable to form a majority government, Mitsotakis joined with the Communists in a short-lived coalition forged to bring corruption charges against Papandreou.

On Sept. 28, 1989, Parliament voted to remand him for trial, but in the political vacuum since then, no proceedings have begun and Greek political observers say none are likely.

The shotgun conservative-Communist marriage ended after the parliamentary vote.