Photo: 
AFP
Victory and instability: Greece’s election

Alexis Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza party has scored an unexpectedly solid win in Greece’s snap general election, winning some 35% of the vote to about 28% for the centre-right New Democracy party, according to near-final results. That translates into 145 seats for Syriza in the 300-member parliament, helped by a 50-seat winner’s bonus. Mr Tsipras will once again govern with his party’s former coalition partner, the nationalist Independent Greeks, who were poised to win 3.6% of the vote and ten seats. But with only 155 seats, down from 162, and elected on a low turnout, the coalition looks weaker than before. More harsh economic measures loom as a condition of the €86 billion ($97 billion) bail-out deal Mr Tsipras signed with Greece’s creditors in July, which he must now implement. A rebellion by anti-austerity Syriza MPs brought down Mr Tsipras’s previous government. Their splinter party tanked. But his new government may prove short-lived.

Sep 21st 2015
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