Greece’s conservative prime minister-elect Kyriakos Mitsotakis vowed that the country would “proudly” enter a post-bailout period of “jobs, security and growth” after winning a landslide victory in Sunday’s general election.
Official results showed Mitsotakis on track to crush leftist premier Alexis Tsipras, who oversaw austerity meausures after Greece’s dramatic rescue by international creditors in the European debt crisis.
“A painful cycle has closed,” Mitsotakis said in a televised address, adding that Greece would “proudly raise its head again” on his watch.
“I will not fail to honour your hopes,” he said as early congratulation calls came from outgoing European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
With official results from 94 percent of polling stations, New Democracy scored a crushing victory by nearly 40 percent — its best score in over a decade — to 31.5 percent for Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party.
“I want to see this people prosper. I want to see the children who left to return,” he later told party supporters.
Mitsotakis will be sworn in as Greece’s new prime minister on Monday.
