Greek opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis will be sworn in as prime minister Monday after his conservative New Democracy party won Sunday's snap election, soundly beating Prime Minister Alexis Tsiprisas' leftist Syriza party. With more than 90 percent of votes counted, New Democracy had nearly 40 percent of the vote to Syriza's 31.5 percent, putting Mitsotakis on track for a parliamentary majority. Tsiprisas conceded defeat on Sunday and said Syriza would be "a responsible but dynamic opposition" party to the new government. Mitsotakis, the 51-year-old son of a former prime minister and uncle to the Athens mayor, pledged to lower taxes and increase investment.
Tsiprisas won office in 2015 at the height of Greece's financial meltdown, railing against European austerity measures, and although his government steered Greece back to financial stability, it did so in part by agreeing to a third European Union bailout with unpopular austerity measures including spending cuts and tax increases. Greece's 18 percent unemployment rate is still the highest in the euro zone. This was the first election since Greece emerged from the last of the three bailouts last year.
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