Athens, January 26 (RHC)-- Partial results from legislative elections in Greece show the opposition Syriza party has garnered a big victory, with the Greek prime minister conceding defeat to the leader of the anti-austerity party.
According to the Interior Ministry's preliminary results released on Sunday, Syriza won 36.5 percent of the vote, or 150 seats in the country’s 300-seat parliament.
Based on the results, the conservative New Democracy party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras secured 28.31 percent or 78 seats. Following the release of the results, Samaras called Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and congratulated him, Tsipras's office said. Samaras had warned last month that the country may be forced out of the eurozone if Syriza wins the poll.
But Tsipras said the idea of Greece quitting the eurozone dates back to the height of the country’s financial crisis in 2012 which led to a 240-billion-euro (330 billion dollars) international bailout.
The final results, expected to come in hours, will declare 40-year-old Tsipras as prime minister of the first eurozone government explicitly opposed to bailout conditions imposed by the so-called troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank.
