Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has admitted defeat in the country’s snap general election.
Centre-right opposition party New Democracy, led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is closing in on a dramatic win.
They have 39.7% of the vote so far, with Mr Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party in second place with 31.6%.
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Current projections would give New Democracy an outright majority, as the winner receives 50 extra seats in parliament.
So far about 75% of districts have returned their results.
The prime minister-elect told supporters he had been given a strong mandate for change.
“The country proudly raises its head again,” he told the crowd in the capital Athens, saying he would be a president for all because Greeks were “too few to stay divided”.
Speaking as the results became clear, Mr Tsipras confirmed he had called Mr Mitsotakis to offer him his congratulations.
“Today, with our head held high we accept the people’s verdict. To bring Greece to where it is today we had to take difficult decisions [with] a heavy political cost,” Mr Tsipras told journalists.
Turnout in the election was about 57%.
Voting is technically compulsory in Greece but is not enforced. Many residents flocked to the beaches or sheltered at home as temperatures exceeded 35C in places.
What do results say so far?
Early results also predicted the far-right Golden Dawn party would be short of the 3% minimum needed to enter parliament by the narrowest of margins – at 2.96% for now.
The nationalist pro-Russian Greek Solution and MeRA25, the left-wing party of former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, were both projected to just exceed the electoral threshold.
Source:Â bbc.com