Greece’s left-wing Syriza looked set for a comfortable victory over the ruling conservatives, an exit poll showed, with a chance of winning a full majority to face down international creditors and roll back years of painful austerity measures.
Syriza could gain 35.5-39.5 per cent of the vote, well ahead of the conservative New Democracy party of outgoing Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on 23-27 per cent, according a joint exit poll for Greek television stations issued immediately after voting ended. Other individual exit polls showed similarly strong leads for Syriza.
If confirmed, the result would install 40-year-old Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras as Prime Minister at the head of the first eurozone government openly opposed to bailout conditions imposed by European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
It would trigger an immediate standoff with Germany and could raise questions over distribution of the next tranche of more than €7 billion in outstanding international aid Greece needs.
A final result could come in the early hours of Monday but after one of the shortest campaigns in recent Greek history, voters appear to have rejected the austerity medicine prescribed during a crisis which has threatened almost four million Greeks or a quarter of the population with poverty.
As the biggest party in the 300-seat Parliament, Syriza would gain an automatic premium of 50 seats but under Greece’s complicated election rules, the number of votes it needs for an absolute majority depends on how the overall vote is split up.
Mr. Tsipras has promised to keep Greece in the euro but his arrival in power would herald the biggest challenge to the approach so far adopted to the crisis by eurozone governments.
