ATHENS – Scrapping to gain a few more seats in Parliament ahead of a June 25 second ballot in Greece that’s seen bringing another New Democracy runaway win, candidates scrambled around the country making pitches and wooing voters.

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who wants to pick up where he left off after finishing a first term – with single-party rule – was back on the trail after a bout with COVID-19.

He posted a negative result on his personal Instagram account showing and calling it “The good news of the day.” He had tested positive for the virus on June 2 and canceled events, including a planned trip to Mount Athos.

The state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency (ANA) gave itineraries of the candidates and their stops, Mitsotakis’ taking him to the northern Athens suburb of Nea Ionia, before he heads to Kavala, Thassos and Drama in northern Greece

Major opposition SYRIZA leader and former premier Alexis Tsipras, licking the wounds of a 20-point beating that gave him four consecutive losses to New Democracy in national, local and European elections took his campaign to Thessaloniki and Piereia.

Nikos Androulakis, who brought the PASOK-KINAL Movement for Change a distant third place showing with 11.46 percent of the vote – New Democracy had 40.79 percent – stuck to Athens to talk to supporters, as did Communist leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas.

The tone switched to green talk tied to marking World Environment Day on June 5, an annual celebration trying to convince political leaders to do something about climate change and alternative forms of energy.

Mitsotakis tweeted “a green Greece is a key pillar of” ND’s program, as Tsipras said that “World Environment Day is not a day of celebration, but a day of alarm for the climate crisis and for the need to implement policies that will deal with its consequences,” without offering what those would be.

Androulakis hailed his party’s environmental platform, which includes proposals on “energy democracy,” adding that PASOK is focused on “sustainable development and the green transition in a socially just way.”

Koutsoumbas is expected to use the theme in his speech called “How Green is Green Growth, although all the talk comes at the same time Greece has had to return to burning coal to produce electricity in the aftermath of the affect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the sector.