Tsipras returned to power with strong win

Greek voters yesterday returned Alexis Tsipras to power with a strong election victory, ensuring that the charismatic leftist remains Greece’s dominant political figure despite caving into European demands for a bailout he once opposed.

With about a quarter of votes counted, Tsipras’s Syriza party was on course to claim 35.3% of the vote, easily seeing off his main conservative challengers New Democracy on 28.1%.

The interior ministry said that would give him 144 seats in the 300-seat parliament, just five fewer than when he first stormed to power early this year. New Democracy swiftly conceded defeat.