ATHENS-Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza party secured an emphatic re-election win Sunday that returns him to the prime minister’s seat, as Greeks voted in the antiestablishment coalition government that he led from January to August.
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With 61% of the vote counted last night, Syriza had 35.5% of the vote and 145 seats in the 300-member parliament, while the Independent Greeks were in seventh place with 3.6% and 10 seats. The Nazi-inspired party, whose leadership is on trial for allegedly running a violent criminal group, dropped marginally in its number of ballots, but had a slightly higher percentage of the overall vote due to the low turnout.
He called the election last month when his party split over his reversal on the 86 billion euro bailout, which he had accepted despite having won a referendum mandate to reject similar terms.
The snap election was called after Tsipras was forced to back down from post as European leaders refused to write off Greece’s debt and roll back austerity measures.
Syriza will have its work cut out over the coming months – with a pension system to overhaul, tax hikes to implement, and a 2016 budget to draft.
The result was a surprise to those that relied heavily on opinion polls ahead of the elections, which showed a neck-and-neck race between Syriza and conservative opposition party New Democracy (ND).
“The Greek people have given us a clear mandate to discard whatever kept us stuck in the past”, he said. The elections were held for the unicameral legislature of Greece which has about 300 seats.
Schulz said he admired Tsipras for the way he had navigated through the previous year to get himself re-elected, but said Kammenos was a loose canon who always needed to be controlled.
However, the electorate appeared to keep their faith in Mr Tsipras, although Syriza will have a smaller majority than before, even as it accepts the Independent Greeks as its coalition partner.
The new anti-bailout Popular Unity party, formed by rebel Syriza members who objected to Tsipras’ agreement to a third bailout for Greece and the stringent austerity attached to it, was falling short of the 3 per cent parliamentary threshold.
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“The bigger question is whether the incoming government will be able to successfully conclude the bailout’s first review”, Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at Eurasia Group, said by e- mail. “He is pure, and smart, and I hope that he will govern for many years”.
