Leader of New Democracy conservative party and winner of Greek general election Kyriakos Mitsotakis is sworn in as prime minister during a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Athens, Greece July 8, 2019. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece’s New Democracy party leader Kyrikos Mitsotakis was sworn in as prime minister on Monday after a landslide victory in snap elections on a platform of investments, lower taxes and jobs.

Mitsotakis will likely face an uphill battle squaring his promises with fiscal targets agreed with lenders. </s> ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis to congratulate him on his victory in general elections on Sunday, an official of Mitsotakis party said.

The handover would take place on Monday, after Mitsotakis’s swearing in as new Prime Minister, the official said. </s> ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for the resignation of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Sunday after a European Parliament election result which Mitsotakis’s party won.

“It is obvious that the Greek people have withdrawn their confidence in this government .. The Prime Minister must assume his responsibilities. He must resign and the country should hold national elections the soonest possible.”

Early election results showed Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party leading Tsipras’s Syriza party by up to nine points. At present, elections are scheduled to be held in October. </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> Athens: Greece's center-right New Democracy party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis will take over as prime minister, after Sunday's election victory handed the former banker a mandate to tackle the nation's chronic woes after a decade-long financial crisis.

New Democracy won 39.7 per cent of the vote, with more than half of the ballots counted, according to the interior ministry, compared with 31.5 per cent for the Syriza party of outgoing prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

Tsipras conceded the election at a news conference in Athens and said he will hand power to Mitsotakis on Monday. The results broadly confirmed pre-election polls, although Syriza did not do as badly as some predictions. New Democracy will have a clear parliamentary majority as expected, with about 158 lawmakers in the 300-seat chamber.

Investors expect the 51-year-old Mitsotakis to prove his business-friendly reputation is deserved. The Harvard-educated former management consultant will need to make good on pledges to address issues including government finances, soured loans and crippling bureaucracy, while working within the tight fiscal constraints creditors have set for the country. </s> Greece: A look at the main candidates in Sunday's election

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece holds a general election Sunday, called three months early by left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras after he suffered a stinging defeat in European Parliament elections in May to conservative rivals who appear to be strengthening their position according to recent opinion polls.

The ballot comes as the country struggles to emerge from a decade of deep financial crisis that slashed size of Greece's economy by a quarter and sent unemployment and poverty rates soaring. The parliamentary election is the first since Greece ended its third consecutive international bailout program.

Here is a look at the main parties and candidates running:

The Athens-born civil engineer is a veteran of Greek politics at age 44, leading the once-marginal Coalition of the Radical Left, Syriza, to a landmark election victory in 2015.

Politically active since his teenage years, Tsipras rose to power as Greece's economy was plunged into financial crisis and voters turned their backs on traditionally dominant parties. Tsipras was first elected on a promise to scrap the draconian terms imposed for bailouts by European Union institutions and the International Monetary Fund,

But he was forced to accept a third rescue deal to keep Greece in the euro. He has since dropped a confrontational stance toward Germany and other large creditor nations and has also built closer military ties with the United States.

Praised by Western allies, his government also hammered out a historic compromise with Balkan neighbor North Macedonia, in a name-change deal that remains broadly unpopular among Greeks.

Tsipras has promised to rebuild public services after years of hardship and funding cuts and insists his party can overturn a huge gap in opinion polls.

Despite facing skepticism within his own party, the 51-year-old Mitsotakis has built a huge lead in opinion polls spanning back three years and is the strong favorite to win Sunday.

A tireless campaigner, Mitsotakis is the Harvard-educated son of the late prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis whose combative style as conservative leader in the late 1980s and early 1990s still remains controversial.

The younger Mitsotakis, leader of Greece's conservative establishment party since January 2016, has struggled to shed an image of family privilege. He focused his campaign on blue collar voters and pledged to make the country more-business friendly, cut taxes, and modernize Greece's antiquated bureaucracy.

Mitsotakis served in a previous conservative government as minister of administrative reform. Unlike many other conservative leaders in the EU, he remains a staunch supporter of deeper European integration. He disputes claims by the Tsipras government that he is tied to the rightist wing of his party and favors privatizing welfare services.

Currently polling in third place, the 54-year-old Gennimata is leader of the Movement for Change, a rebranded Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement, or Pasok, the party that dominated the government for three decades but was devastated by the financial crisis a decade ago and has lost the bulk of its support to Prime Minister Tsipras' Syriza party.

An effort two years ago by Gennimata to expand the party, joining forces with other centrist groups, was tarnished by multiple policy and administrative disputes within the revamped party. Gennimata has overtaken the extreme right Golden Dawn Party for third place in opinion polls before Sunday's election.

The former director of a Communist newspaper, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, 63, is the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Greece, KKE, a party that maintained unwavering support for the Soviet Union's leadership over decades while other Communist parties in Europe distanced themselves from Moscow.

Koutsoumbas has defended party political traditions and orthodoxy, focusing attacks on its one-time ally Syriza, accusing it of selling out workers' rights. The KKE's leadership failed to win over any significant boost in public support for the party during the financial crisis and has seen its share of the vote dip over the last 20 years.

Three other parties are vying for seats in parliament — set by a threshold of 3% of the vote nationwide.

Golden Dawn is an extreme right party founded by neo-Nazi supporters 34 years ago, and leaders are currently on charges related to incitement to violence. The party has suffered a sharp drop in support before Sunday's vote.

Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis founded a pan-European anti-austerity party in 2016 and narrowly missed the threshold in Greece in European Parliament elections in May.

And far-right TV pundit Kyriakos Velopoulos and his party Greek Solution has seen a surge in support in recent months. </s> (Bloomberg) -- Greece’s center-right New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is likely to succeed Alexis Tsipras as prime minister after preliminary results showed the former banker scored a clear victory in Sunday’s national election.

New Democracy won 39.8% of the vote, with around 27% of the votes counted, according the interior ministry, compared with 31.5% for Tsipras’s Syriza party. New Democracy will have at least 154 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament, the results showed.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eleni Chrepa in Athens at echrepa@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sotiris Nikas at snikas@bloomberg.net, Iain Rogers </s> Exit polls in Greece’s general election indicate conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won a comfortable victory over left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Exit polls in Greece’s general election indicate conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won a comfortable victory over left-wing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The exit polls from Sunday’s election predicted Mr Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party would win enough seats in Greece’s 300-member parliament to form a government without needing to enter a coalition with another party.

The vote is Greece’s first parliamentary election since the country emerged from three successive international bailouts and as it continues to struggle from a crippling financial crisis of nearly a decade.

The election was held three months earlier than originally planned after Mr Tsipras saw his support erode during European elections.

And it comes as the country gradually emerges from a brutal nearly decade-long financial crisis that saw unemployment and poverty levels skyrocket, and Greece’s economy slashed by a quarter.

Greece was dependent for survival until last summer on international bailouts, and had to impose deep reforms, including massive spending cuts and tax hikes, to qualify for the rescue loans.

Mr Tsipras led his small Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, party to victory in 2015 elections on promises to repeal the austerity measures of Greece’s first two bailouts.

But after months of tumultuous negotiations with the country’s international creditors that saw Greece nearly crash out of the European Union’s joint currency, he was forced to change tack, signing up to a third bailout and imposing the accompanying spending cuts and tax hikes.

He also cemented a deal with neighbouring North Macedonia under which that country changed its name from Macedonia. Although praised by Western allies, the deal angered many Greeks, who consider use of the term harbours expansionist aims on the Greek province of the same name.

Mr Mitsotakis, son of a former prime minister and brother of a former foreign minister, was pledging to make Greece more business-friendly, attract foreign investment, modernise the country’s notorious bureaucracy and cut taxes. </s> ATHENS — Greek voters turned out their leftist prime minister in elections that came after a decade of grueling economic austerity, casting their lot with a resurgent center-right New Democracy party.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called his opponent, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a Harvard-educated former banker and son of a former prime minister, to concede defeat.

Initial results showed that Mr. Tsipras’s Syriza party, which has ruled Greece for the past four years, had suffered a major defeat at the hands of New Democracy.
Winner of the general election Kyriakos Mitsotakis is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Greece, succeeding Alexis Tsipras.