Centre-right leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis was sworn in as Greece’s new Prime Minister on Monday just a day after his New Democracy party landed an absolute majority in the country’s elections, which put an end to the left-wing Syriza government.

Unlike his predecessor Alexis Tspiras back in 2015, Mitsotakis took a religious oath of office with his hand on the Bible in the presence of the Archbishop of Athens, Ieronymous II, and several other Orthodox representatives in a traditional ceremony at the presidential palace, reported Efe news.

“I swear in the name of the Holy, Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity to safeguard the Constitution and the laws and to serve the general interest of the Greek people,” he said, joined by President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, his wife and three children.

In a brief statement before heading off to the government headquarters to exchange functions with Tsipras, Mitsotakis reiterated the message he gave on election night: “The people have given us a strong mandate to change the country. From today we will begin to work very hard,” he said.

Tsipras welcomed him with a handshake, something that the outgoing PM’s predecessor, the conservative Andonis Samaras, did not do in 2015.

New Democracy took 39.8 per cent of the national vote in Sunday’s elections, meaning it landed 158 of the 300 parliamentary seats, while Syriza dropped to 31.5 per cent, or 86 lawmakers.

Under Greek norms, the winning party is awarded 50 bonus seats.

The results make way for bipartisanship in Parliament once again, as Syriza comprises a strong opposition force, with a 20-point advantage over its nearest challenger, the centrist Kinal party.

New Democracy obtained its best showing in more than a decade, as voters fled not only Syriza but several other major parties towards the centre-right.

The outgoing governing party secured just four points less than what it achieved in 2015.

Kinal scraped 8 per cent, two percentage points more than its previous showing.

The communist KKE held onto its 5 per cent share, largely thanks to the collapse of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which took just 2.9 percent, less than half of what it achieved last time around and not enough to make the cut for parliamentary seats.

This does not indicate that the hunger for the far-right was ebbing in Greece, as Greek Solution took 10 seats or 3.7 per cent of the vote. </s> Greece's New Democracy party leader Kyrikos Mitsotakis was sworn in as prime minister on Monday following snap elections that saw him defeat left-wing Alexis Tsipras .

Mitsotakis' New Democracy party won 39.8% of the vote, giving him 158 seats in the 300-member parliament, a comfortable governing majority.

Tsipras' Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, garnered 31.5%. The extremist right-wing Golden Dawn, Greece's third largest party during the height of the financial crisis, failed to make the 3% threshold to enter parliament.

More to come... </s> Greece's ruling leftist Syriza party suffered a landslide defeat in elections yesterday, bringing an end to the government of prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

Greece's ruling leftist Syriza party suffered a landslide defeat in elections yesterday, bringing an end to the government of prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

The opposition conservatives have been returned to power, with prime minister-elect Kyriakos Mitsotakis saying he had a clear mandate for change, pledging more investments and fewer taxes.

The win appeared driven by fatigue with years of EU-enforced belt-tightening, combined with high unemployment, after the country almost crashed out of the eurozone at the height of its financial travails in 2015.

Conservative New Democracy had a commanding lead of 39.6pc of the vote - based on 73pc of the votes counted - versus 31.6pc Syriza, according to official tallies.

Exit polls showed New Democracy winning between 155 and 167 seats in the 300-member parliament, taking advantage of an electoral system which gives bonus seats to the frontrunner.

Mr Mitsotakis said in a televised address: "I am committed to fewer taxes, many investments, for good and new jobs, and growth which will bring better salaries and higher pensions in an efficient state."

Mr Tsipras said he respected the will of the Greek people.

"Today, with our head held high we accept the people's verdict," he said.

"To bring Greece to where it is today we had to take difficult decisions (with) a heavy political cost."

Mr Tsipras took over from the conservatives in 2015 as Greece was at the peak of a financial crisis that had ravaged the country since 2010.

Initially vowing to resist deeper austerity, he was forced into signing up to another bailout months after his election, a decision that went down badly with voters.

Mr Mitsotakis, who comes from a powerful political dynasty and whose late father Konstantinos was prime minister from 1990 to 1993, will be sworn into office as early as today.

The 51-year-old assumed the helm of New Democracy in 2016. Although he is seen as a liberal, his party also harbours members with more right-wing views.

Golden Dawn, an extreme right-wing party accused of having neo-Nazi sympathies, lost significant ground with early results suggesting it may not reach the 3pc threshold to gain a presence in parliament.

"The basic reason (for the result) is the economy," said analyst Theodore Couloumbis. "In the past four years, people saw no improvement. There were cutbacks in salaries and pensions."

Mr Mitsotakis will inherit an economy that is growing at a moderate clip but troubled public finances. </s> The centre-right New Democracy (ND) Party of ex-banker Kyriakos Mitsotakis is poised to win the Greek snap parliamentary elections the Greek snap parliamentary election with between 38 to 42% of votes, which translates to 155-167 seats in the 300-seat Greek parliament, a Greek TV channel ERT suggest citin exit polls.

The ruling leftist alliance Syriza of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is set to win 26.5-30.5 percent of the vote and 77-82 seats.

​The socialist Kinal party will get 6-8 percent of the vote and 19-22 seats. The Communists are fourth with 5-7 percent of the vote and 16-19 seats.

DiEM25 of ex-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is set to gain 3-5 percent of the vote an 8-14 seats. Traditionalist Greek Solution is on 2.8-4.8 percent with up to 13 seats, while far-right New Dawn is on 2.5-4.5 percent with the same amount of seats.

Greeks went to the polls on Sunday after the ruling party called a snap general election after it lost to the centre-right ND Party in May’s European Parliament elections and the opposition urged Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to resign. </s> Voters in Greece have given Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s centre-right New Democracy party a resounding mandate to form a new government after it won by a landslide over the incumbent leftwing Syriza party, which has been in power since 2015.

As the outcome of Sunday’s general election became clear, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, conceded defeat, calling Mr Mitsotakis to congratulate him on his victory. The official handover of power will take place on Monday.

With 91 per cent of the vote counted, the country’s interior ministry said the conservatives had gained 39.7 per cent compared with 31.5 per cent for Syriza.

In his first address as the country’s new leader, the 51-year-old Harvard-educated former banker said he welcomed the result with a sense of “modesty and respect” seeing it as a victory for all, irrespective of political persuasion.

“Society wants us to move forward united,” he said as euphoric supporters gathered outside New Democracy’s headquarters. “It wants growth, work, security and for Greece to become, as it deserves, strong again. I’ll be prime minister of all Greeks. I will work to convince our compatriots who did not support us. We are too few to be divided and we have much to do together ... from today a difficult but beautiful battle lies ahead.”

The result gives New Democracy an outright majority with 158 seats in the Greek parliament, more than double its current representation in the 300-seat house.

With the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party failing to cross the 3 per cent threshold required to secure any seats, interior ministry officials described the outcome as conclusive. Previously Greece’s third biggest political force, the anti-immigrant party had embodied the darkest days of the debt-stricken country’s descent into crisis.

Senior members are on trial following the death of a prominent anti-fascist rapper and charges of running the party as a criminal organisation.

Mr Mitsotakis, the son of a former prime minister, also received a congratulatory call from Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Tensions between the two Nato rivals have been rising in recent months over conflicting claims to hydrocarbons off Cyprus.

New Democracy officials described the result as historic. Many called it a personal victory for Mr Mitsotakis, a reformist who has been at pains to modernise and revamp one of Europe’s most conservative parties since being elevated to its helm in January 2016.

“Credit has to go to him and his strategy of opening up and moving the party towards the centre,” said Haris Theocharis, a newly elected MP and former head of public revenues. “It is a result that comes with a lot of responsibility.”

Acknowledging the party had sought to embrace the centre ground, Mr Mitsotakis pledged he would endeavor to change the country for the hundreds of thousands of mostly young Greeks who in recent years had left in search of work. “I won’t ask you to take the road of return,” he said. “I ask you to have your gaze and heart turned towards Greece. From today, we will work to change the country that you were forced to leave.”

Many of its MPs will be first-time politicians who were drawn to the party’s pledge to re-energise the economy by attracting foreign investment and creating jobs after four and a half years of often rollercoaster leadership under Mr Tsipras.

“These new faces are the faces of renewal,” said one of Mr Mitsotakis’s senior advisers. “For the last two years, Kyriakos has spent every week somewhere in the country listening to people’s problems. He knows what they are.”

Mr Tsipras called the vote three months ahead of schedule after Syriza’s staggering defeat in European parliament elections in May. New Democracy routed the leftists by 9.5 percentage points, a margin of victory not seen since European elections were first contested in Greece in 1981.

Syriza rallied on Sunday, doing much better than expected. “I can assure the Greek people that from the benches of the opposition we will be present to protect the interests of people of toil and creativity,” the leftist leader vowed, describing his party’s loss as “anything but a strategic defeat”.

The election was billed as transformational: the winning party will form Greece’s first post-bailout government after almost a decade of recession. Kept afloat by international rescue funds since 2010, the thrice-bailed-out nation has been forced to endure punishing austerity in return for remaining in the eurozone.

New Democracy’s revival has been linked to Mr Mitsotakis’s efforts to entice centrists and to the conservatives’ ability to siphon off votes from Golden Dawn by taking a tough stance on immigration and on an accord struck by Tsipras settling a long-running name row over Macedonia, Greece’s neighbour to the north.

The poll was the first to take place at the height of summer since 1928 and there were worries that many would miss the vote, preferring to go to the beach or remain at home rather than traipse to polling stations in temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees.

Twenty parties contested the race for seats in the 300-member parliament. On television shows on Sunday morning, analysts mused that the vote could be swung by hundreds of thousands of younger Greeks “deciding to go to the beach or polling stations”. Smaller parties, such as the ultra-nationalist Greek Solution and leftist MeRA25, headed by Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister, were targeting younger Greeks.

“Voting once every four years is not enough for democracy,” Mr Varoufakis told reporters as he emerged from a polling station in a coastal area of southern Athens. “Democracy belongs only to those who have the courage to defend it. Today, the only way to defend it is by voting on the basis of parties’ programmes and records. Congratulations to all those citizens who get off their sofas and vote.”

Mr Varoufakis’s party appears to have fared well, gaining 3.4 per cent of the vote and nine MPs in parliament. – Guardian </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why young people have suffered the most from Greece’s economic collapse

Greeks are going to the polls to elect a new parliament, with the centre-right opposition mounting a strong challenge to the leftist government.

The New Democracy party of Kyriakos Mitsotakis is hoping to end more than four years of rule by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's Syriza party.

Mr Tsipras called snap elections soon after suffering an electoral defeat in May's European elections.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 local time (04:00 GMT).

Image copyright AFP Image caption Leader-in-waiting? Kyriakos Mitsotakis cast his vote in Athens

It is Greece's sixth election since the global financial crisis in 2008.

The crisis triggered a succession of financial bailouts, with the Greek economy shrinking by 28% between 2008 and 2016, and increasing unemployment has thrown many Greeks into poverty.

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Greek bailout: Five numbers that reshaped the country

Greece exited the bailout programme in August of last year and growth has returned.

But with temperatures hitting 35C in much of the country, many politicians are concerned on the impact the weather may have on turnout, as voters stay cool at home - or head to the beach.

What are the rival parties offering?

Mr Mitsotakis is promising lower taxes, greater privatisation of public services and plans to renegotiate a deal with Greece's creditors that would allow more money to be reinvested in the country.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis (left) and Greek PM Alexis Tsipras

Mr Tsipras, who came to power in 2015, has promised more investment and recently boosted pensions. His own investment policies would also have to be renegotiated with creditors as the country remains under eurozone supervision.

Each of the country's numerous parties needs to gain at least 3% of the vote to get into the parliament and as many as seven of them could win seats.

The winning party gets a 50-seat bonus and needs 151 seats in the 300-seat parliament to have a majority.

At the European elections, New Democracy won 33.11% of the vote against 23.78% for Syriza.

The highest percentage of 18-to-24 year olds (30.5%) at that election backed New Democracy. </s> Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who stormed to power in 2015 vowing to tear up the austerity rule book but then broke most of his promises, has been blamed for saddling the cash-strapped EU member state with even more debt. And his time in power looks set to be coming to an end with the conservative New Democracy party 10 points ahead in the opinion polls and on the verge of winning an absolute majority in Greece's 300-seat parliament.

Mr Tsipras said: “This is a critical battle. We are fighting it with optimism and determination so that the sacrifices and hard work of our people do not go to waste.” The snap election was called after Syriza suffered a defeat in European elections in May, and is largely a showdown between two contenders - Mr Tsipras and Kyriakos Mitsotakis of New Democracy who hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father to become prime minister. Mr Mitsotakis said: “Today, Greeks take their future in their own hands and I am certain that a better day for our country will dawn tomorrow.”



Greece endured a debilitating financial crisis from 2010 and were handed three cash lifelines from its EU partners. And Mr Tsipras warned a vote cast for his rival would see the return of the political establishment which got Greece into such a mess in the first place. But he has also been roundly criticised for mismanagement of cash crises and for brokering a deeply unpopular deal to end a dispute over the name of neighouring North Macedonia.

Greece wrapped up its last economic adjustment programme in 2018 but remains under close scrutiny from lenders to ensure no future financial meltdowns. And while economic growth has returned the country, unemployment of 18 percent remains the highest in the eurozone. New Democracy has promised to invest in creating well-paid jobs with decent benefits. </s> Greece's government has survived a no-confidence vote over a deal to end a bitter decades-long name dispute with its northern neighbour which called itself Macedonia at the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Parliamentarians voted 153-127 to keep Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's administration in place.

The coalition government, led by left-wing Syriza, needed at least 151 of its 154 members of parliament to vote against the proposal.

The coalition's junior partner - the Independent Greeks (ANEL), a right-wing party - says it opposes the deal but only one of its MPs backed the censure motion in parliament. Panos Kammenos, leader of ANEL and defence minister, subsequently kicked the lawmaker out of the party.

The motion was brought by the conservative New Democracy party which accused the government of making too many concessions over the agreement which will eventually see the small country - which declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 - renamed the Republic of North Macedonia.

"Today, you are all mortgaging the future of the country," Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the New Democracy leader, told parliament ahead of the vote.

Addressing Tsipras, Mitsotakis added: "You will be the prime minister to say 'Yes' to everything your predecessors said 'No.'"

In response, Tsipras accused Mitsotakis of political opportunism and "of being hostage of the far-right wing of your party".

Talking about the deal, Tsipras described it as good, adding "that any Greek prime minister after 1995 and the interim agreement would like to have on the table."

"It not only includes a compound name with a geographic qualifier, used erga omnes, but also sets as a condition a change of the constitutional name by which the country has been recognised by 140 countries. It includes a constitutional change to eradicate every irredentist term in their constitution," Tsipras pointed out.

Outside the parliament building in the capital, Athens, police earlier fired teargas as thousands protested against the deal.

The parliament debate, which stated on Thursday, was marred by a rant by an MP of the far-right Golden Dawn party on Friday who urged the army to arrest Tsipras, Kammenos and President Prokopis Pavlopoulos because of the agreement.

The deal to rename Greece's northern neighbour North Macedonia was announced on Tuesday by the prime ministers of the two countries after six months of talks to end the 26-year standoff.

Greece has long objected to the former Yugoslav state calling itself Republic of Macedonia, which it said implied territorial aspirations on its northern region of the same name.

Since the fall of communism, Greeks have called the country to their north Skopje, after its capital city, and its people and their language as Skopjan.

The New Democracy party said the deal brokered by Tsipras and his counterpart, Zoran Zaev, is "opposed by the overwhelming majority of Greek people".

In Skopje, there has also been a heavy backlash against the agreement, with the president declaring his refusal to sign off on the deal. The agreement must clear the hurdles of parliamentary ratification, a referendum in September and a constitutional amendment.

In Athens, the deal only faces ratification in parliament once Skopje has completed its part of the process.

ANEL says it will not support it when it comes up for ratification in parliament. That would leave Tsipras dependent on opposition parties to pass the measure.

Under the agreement, which is tentatively scheduled to be signed on Sunday, the country's Macedonian language and nationality is sanctioned, albeit with the proviso that they are of Slav, not ancient Greek, origin.

North Macedonia would agree that its "official language and other attributes … are not related to the ancient Hellenic civilisation, history, culture and heritage of the northern region of [Greece] " and would make constitutional changes to remove claims on Greek soil. </s> The political scene changed utterly Sunday, as New Democracy swept to a convincing victory over the ruling SYRIZA party in European Parliament elections. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had framed the poll as a vote of confidence in his government, his policies and himself. The vote, however, turned out to be not only a defeat for Tsipras but also an earthquake in Greece’s politics. With center-right New Democracy winning by a wide margin, with SYRIZA dropping despite having invested heavily in polarizing rhetoric and in handouts to voters, and with PASOK taking third place ahead of the Communist Party and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, it appears that the division between pro-bailout and anti-bailout forces has run its course. The early parliamentary elections that Tsipras will call for in a week’s time will probably reflect this.

 

 Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA swept to power in January 2015 with 36.34 percent of the vote, riding a wave of public anger at austerity and reform that creditors and European Union partners imposed on the Greeks in the 2010 bailout agreement. Governing with the extreme right-wing Independent Greeks, SYRIZA presented itself as the voice of the common people against the elites. Although he failed to force creditors to bend to his will, and in mid-2015 he was forced to accept a new bailout with onerous conditions, Tsipras kept up his attacks on rivals at home. In recent weeks, as the European Parliament elections approached, he invested heavily in a campaign that was politically divisive and which also threatened to derail the sacrifices of years of austerity. He warned pensioners that the handouts his government had provided in recent week depended on their vote Sunday. The tactic did not work. The reasons that people abandoned SYRIZA will be clearer in the next few days, but it appeared that many of the centrist voters who had pushed from the fringes of politics to center stage were no longer satisfied with Tsipras’ polarizing language, his policies and, perhaps, his government’s tolerance of anti-establishment activism.

 

 In his post-election statement shortly before midnight last night, Tsipras said that he would visit President Prokopis Pavlopoulos immediately after the second round of local elections, which will be held on Sunday, and ask him to call parliamentary elections. The prime minister chose to present the political choice as one between light and darkness, with his party promising release from austerity while its rivals were ostensibly in favor of austerity, the elites and the International Monetary Fund. This was a seamless continuation of the election campaign that had brought defeat in Sunday’s elections for the European Parliament and local authorities. This suggests that SYRIZA may not only maintain polarizing language but may also increase the tension in an effort to keep votes.

 

 New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on the other hand, had appeared conciliatory in his statement earlier Sunday. He called on the prime minister to call elections as soon as possible but also called on ND supporters to act “with responsibility and, above all, with modesty.” It will be a tough task to achieve this, if the government and its supporters maintain the tension of the past weeks. But Mitsotakis is in a position to put his stamp on his party now. He is credited with its remarkable revival, leading it to victory for the first time since June 2012, when it gained 29.66 percent. This means that Mitsotakis may be able to push the reform agenda that he proposed when he was elected party leader in a vote by party supporters in January 2016. Mitsotakis, although the son of a former prime minister, had been considered an outsider because of his reformist bent in a party with strong statist transition. Tsipras has continually focused his attacks on Mitsotakis, providing his rival with a new level of credibility now that Mitsotakis is credited with Sunday’s victory.

 

 The next few weeks and months will be crucial to domestic politics and to Greece’s relations with its partners in the European Union, its allies and its creditors. Tsipras and Mitsotakis bear a heavy burden of responsibility as they lead the nation to elections. If division reigns, many of the sacrifices of the past 10 years will have been in vain and Greece will be in a worse position than it was before the crisis.
Leader of the Opposition Kyriakos Mitsotakis, from New Democracy, wins an absolute majority and is expected to be sworn in Prime Minister as incumbent Alexis Tsipras falls to second place. Far-right Golden Dawn loses all the seats they had in the Parliament.