Radical left-wing Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has conceded defeat after a partial vote count showed the conservative opposition had comfortably won a snap parliamentary election.
The centre-right New Democracy party of Kyriakos Mitsotakis had 39.7 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Tsipras’ Syriza party’s 31.5 per cent after nearly 60 per cent of ballots were tallied. Turn out in today’s snap election was around 57 per cent.
Mr Tsipras’s Syriza party has held power in the country for nearly five years, making him Greece’s longest- serving crisis premier and youngest in almost half a century at 44.
The result is a stinging blow to the outgoing Prime Minister, who had insisted he could overturn a sizeable gap in opinion polls running up to the election, which he asked to hold several months before his term expires in the fall.
‘A painful cycle has closed,’ prime minister-elect Mr Mitsotakis said in a televised address, adding that Greece would ‘proudly raise its head again’ on his watch.
‘I will not fail to honour your hopes,’ he added as early congratulation calls came from outgoing European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr Mitsotakis is from one of Greece’s top political families. He is the son of former prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis, one of the country’s longest-serving parliamentarians.
His sister is former minister Dora Bakoyannis, Athens’s first female mayor. And new Athens mayor Costas Bakoyannis, elected in May, is his nephew.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras speaks to the media after conceding defeat to the centre-right opposition party in today’s snap election
Greek opposition New Democracy conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis greets supporters after winning the parliamentary elections at the New Democracy headquarters
Greece’s newly elected Prime Minister and leader of conservative New Democracy party Kyriakos Mitsotakis hugs his daughter at the party’s headquarters after the official results of the elections
Supporters of Greece’s newly elected Prime Minister and leader of conservative New Democracy party Kyriakos Mitsotakis, celebrate outside the party’s headquarters
‘The citizens have made their choice. We fully respect the popular vote,’ Mr Tsipras said in his concession speech from central Athens, adding that he had called Mr Mitsotakis to congratulate him.
‘I want to assure the Greek people that… we will protect the rights of working people with a responsible but dynamic opposition,’ he said.
‘I wish and hope that the return of New Democracy to government will not lead to vengeance… particularly toward the significant achievements to protect the social majority and the workers.’
Official projections based on early partial results also showed the extreme right-wing Golden Dawn party teetering on the lower side of the 3 per cent threshold needed to be in parliament.
Golden Dawn became the third-largest party in parliament during Greece’s financial crisis,
Greece is gradually emerging from the crippling financial crisis that saw unemployment and poverty levels skyrocket and the economy shrink by a quarter.
Until last summer, the country relied on three successive bailouts and had to take deep reforms such as massive spending cuts and tax hikes to qualify for the rescue loans.
The centre-right New Democracy party of Kyriakos Mitsotakis had 39.7 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Tsipras’ Syriza party’s 31.5 per cent after nearly 60 per cent of ballots were tallied
Defeated Mr Tsipras called the election three months ahead of schedule after his left-wing Syriza party suffered a severe defeat in European Union and local elections
Official projections based on early partial results showed six parties entering parliament, with New Democracy holding 158 of the body’s 300 seats, a comfortable governing majority
Mr Tsipras called the election three months ahead of schedule after his left-wing Syriza party suffered a severe defeat in European Union and local elections in May and early June.
Official projections based on early partial results showed six parties entering parliament, with New Democracy holding 158 of the body’s 300 seats, a comfortable governing majority.
Golden Dawn was hovering at around 2.96 per cent, said Yiannis Theodoropoulos of SingularLogic, the company compiling the official election results for the Interior Ministry.
If it manages to push above the 3 per cent threshold to enter parliament, that would reduce New Democracy’s number of seats from the 158 it was projected to have.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras greets supporters after casting his ballot at a polling station during general elections today
A man can be seen casting his vote today while a woman and her child looked on at the polling station in Athens earlier today
People form all walks of life were seen coming in and out of polling stations today in Athens – despite the soaring temperatures across the country
A man holding his daughter casts his vote at a polling station during general elections in Thessaloniki earlier today
Polling stations opened at 7.00am local time and closed at 7.00pm.
Ahead of the vote today, three opinion polls predicted a clear victory for the New Democracy party, prompting Mr Tsipras to urge people to get out and vote.
This morning he voted in Kypseli, near the centre of Athens and told young people to ‘not to leave this crucial decision for their lives in the hands of others’.
Many people were today concerned about the rate of turn out in the elections as temperatures across Greece soared to 102F.
One woman who was present at the polling station said: ‘What is at stake is too important for someone not to vote and instead go to the beach.
Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras casts his vote during the general elections at a polling station, in Athens, Greece
Greece’s opposition party New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis leaves a polling booth before casting his vote at a polling station in Athens
A woman holding her child casts her vote at a polling station after Prime Minister Tsipras called a snap election in June
‘Greece is exiting ten years of crisis and the new government will have the heavy task to give a chance to the country to recover completely or to sink’.
Mr Mitsotakis said during voting: ‘Today is a big celebration of democracy. Greek women and men hold the fate of this land in their hands.’
Many took to the polling stations to cast their votes without causing a stir, however, some members of a small far-left party were seen protesting outside the polling station where Mitsotakis voted.
Their shouts were soon drowned out however by New Democracy supporters calling their leader the new prime minister.
The snap election was called in June after Tsipras lost both European and local elections to Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party within the space of just two weeks.
Mitsotakis had previously accused Tsipras of ‘disastrous’ mismanagement that brought hundreds of thousands of job losses and businesses failures.