ATHENS — Greece’s former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he is quitting as leader of the Syriza party after a crushing defeat in last Sunday’s elections.
“The time has come to start a new cycle,” Tsipras said, calling for his centre-left party to be reformed.
The conservative New Democracy (ND) party won nearly 41% of the vote, leaving Syriza far behind on 18%.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who leads the ND, said he now has a “strong mandate” to move on the path of change.
Mitsotakis beat Syriza in May — but called new elections in a bid to win a majority in a 300-member parliament.
Under Greek rules for a second election, the largest party is awarded a bonus of between 20 and 50 seats.
After Sunday’s poll, ND won all 50 — and now has 158 lawmakers.
Tsipras’ resignation announcement came in a televised statement on Thursday.
He said “the negative [election] The result can — and must — become the beginning” of a new cycle for Syriza.
The politician added that he was now calling “elections within Syriza for a new leader, in which I will not be a candidate”.
Tsipras, now 48, was Greece’s prime minister from 2015-19 and was the country’s youngest leader in 150 years.
He was swept to power, vowing to abolish EU-imposed austerity measures to overcome Greece’s massive government-debt crisis.
But he reneged on those pledges soon afterwards, and is remembered by many Greeks as a politician who nearly crashed the country out of the eurozone. BBC