Greek voters returned Alexis Tsipras to power with a strong
election victory on Sunday, ensuring the charismatic leftist remains Greece's
dominant political figure despite caving in to European demands for a bailout
he once opposed.
With about a quarter of
votes counted, Tsipras's Syriza party was on course to claim 35.3 percent of
the vote, easily seeing off his main conservative challengers New Democracy on
28.1 percent.
The interior ministry
said that would give him 144 seats in the 300-seat parliament, just five fewer
than when he first stormed to power early this year. New Democracy swiftly
conceded defeat.
A Syriza source said the
party would turn once again to the small right-wing Independent Greeks party to
form a coalition, restoring the alliance that first brought Tsipras to power
nine months ago.
He called the election last
month when his party split over his reversal on the 86 billion euro ($97
billion) bailout, which he had accepted despite having won a referendum mandate
to reject similar terms.
Tsipras expects to form
a government within three days, another party source said.
"The electoral
result appears to be concluding with Syriza and Mr Tspiras in the lead. I
congratulate him and urge him to create the government which is needed,"
New Democracy's leader Vangelis Meimarakiis said.
Third place in the
election looked set to go again to Golden Dawn, a far right party with a
swastika-like symbol, with around 7 percent of the vote.
Tsipras's victory
appears to have been stronger than some opinion polls had suggested. The
firebrand leftist fought hard for Greece to be let off harsh austerity rules
imposed by international creditors, only to back down last month after Greece's
banks were shut and the country was pushed to the wall.
More than two dozen of
his lawmakers abandoned him, many saying he had betrayed his principles. He
argued that his tough negotiating stance softened the blow of austerity and
persuaded creditors to agree a restructuring of Greek debt.
Apart from Golden Dawn
and the communist KKE party, the major parties in the new parliament have now
accepted the cash-for-reforms deal to keep Greece in the euro zone.
"After years of
almost unprecedented crisis, the vast majority of Greeks are endorsing parties
that are promising to keep the country in the euro even if that implies
thorough and painful reforms," Holger Schmieding, chief economist at
Germany's Berenberg bank said.
For former allies still
opposed to EU-imposed austerity, however, Tsipras is a turncoat.
Yanis Varoufakis, the
outspoken former finance minister who infuriated EU officials with his refusal
to accept their proposals, called the election "the 'legalization' of the
capitulation that followed the signing of the dead end, humiliating and
irrational" bailout.
The new government will
also need to handle growing refugee inflows. Greece has been the main route
into the European Union for tens of thousands of migrants arriving by sea,
although nearly all of them quickly leave, heading north over land across the
Balkans to richer countries like Germany.
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