ATHENS — Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the likely next prime minister of Greece, looks every inch the Western-facing liberal he was brought up to be.

The leader of the nominally center-right New Democracy party is the son of former Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis (Greek politics is irredeemably dynastic) and a graduate of Harvard, Stanford and Harvard Business School.

In a country strafed by austerity and poverty, Mitsotakis’ expected victory in a general election Sunday has been widely portrayed as a return to normal for Greek politics after more than a decade of political and economic turmoil following the 2008 financial crisis.

But look behind him and a different picture emerges. New Democracy’s leader may be a moderate centrist; the rest of the party is anything but. If Greek voters reject Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ “radical left” Syriza party in favor of Mitsotakis’ — as polls widely expect them to — they’ll be exchanging one set of populist politicians for another.

Even as Tsipras has steered his party toward the center, New Democracy has swerved to the right. Mitsotakis has become the acceptable face of a party containing hard-right elements, which have, moreover, been emboldened through the right’s global success — everywhere from Hungary to the United States.

“Since it could not oppose implementing the memorandum, it had to oppose Syriza's policies on matters like human rights and so called ‘national issues’” — Augustine Zenakos, Greek journalist

Indeed, Mitsotakis owes his very election to the leadership to New Democracy’s hard-right faction — led by former prime minister and party leader Antonis Samaras, and Adonis Georgiadis, its vice president and a former minister of health in Samaras’ government.

Georgiadis is a controversial figure. Like many of today’s right wing, he has been accused of anti-Semitism. He has also cast doubt on the official version of the Polytechneion uprising against the junta in 1973 — a sacred event in the national consciousness. Specifically (and incredibly) he stated that the event incurred no casualties (in fact there were around 40 civilian deaths). “There were no deaths in the Polytechneion, not one,” he claimed on live TV.

Georgiadis’ wing of the party is in ascension. New Democracy is surging to victory on the back of its opposition to the 2018 Prespes Agreement between Greece and North Macedonia, in which Syriza agreed to drop Greece’s veto of Skopje’s NATO accession in return for the country changing its name.

The agreement was supported by everyone from the EU to NATO to the United States. The loudest to object: the Kremlin — and New Democracy.

The party’s rightward shift has its origins in the position it found itself in a few months after Syriza took power in 2015. Tsipras had strutted into office in January promising to fight Brussels and oppose the “memorandum” — the agreement between Athens and its creditors that exchanged debt relief for a series of austerity measures.

By mid-summer he had capitulated to both.

For Tsipras and Syriza, it was a humiliating climb down. But it wasn’t one on which New Democracy could capitalize — as it brought the Greek government’s policy in line with a position it had long advocated.

And so, looking to differentiate itself from the government, the party started to strengthen its right-populist identity. “Since it could not oppose implementing the memorandum, it had to oppose Syriza's policies on matters like human rights and so called ‘national issues,’” said Augustine Zenakos, an independent journalist and a member of the investigative team The Manifold.

The financial crisis of 2008 was near existential. Greece nearly tumbled out of the eurozone and austerity decimated the middle class. It also led to the extreme polarization of public discourse. This “allowed for extreme, nationalist and reactionary rhetoric to become central in ND’s political discourse,” said Zenakos. New Democracy politicians staked out battles on issues like giving citizenship to the children of migrants born in Greece, gay rights and the Macedonia name deal.

Now — New Democracy’s centrist leader not withstanding — extreme nationalist elements are set to play an important role in running the country.

“References to the Greek Civil War abound,” said Zenakos. “The left accuses the right of 'fascism' and the EU troika of being a 'junta' — the right sports a horseshoe theory, where Syriza and [the extreme right] Golden Dawn are presented as equal dangers to democracy.”

It’s this environment that has allowed for the emergence of figures like Georgiadis. Once, they would have been considered peripheral. Today, they’re key players. Their aggressive rhetoric infects the bloodstream of the body politic.

New Democracy, a broad right-wing party, has always included extreme nationalist elements. Because of Greece’s crisis, they’ve gained prominence in the party. Now — New Democracy’s centrist leader notwithstanding — they’re set to play an important role in running the country. Greece may be headed for yet more instability.

David Patrikarakos is a freelance journalist and author of several books, including "War in 140 Characters: How Social Media is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century" (Basic Books, 2017).