Greece election: Prime minister Tsipras calls snap poll after European parliament losses

Opposition leader says it is 'obvious that the Greek people have withdrawn their confidence in this government'

Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras has called a snap election after his party was defeated in the European parliament elections.

Results showed his party trailing by up to nine points behind the opposition New Democracy party.

Opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for Mr Tsipras to resign on Sunday, saying it was “obvious that the Greek people have withdrawn their confidence in this government”.

“The prime minister must assume his responsibilities,” Mr Mitsotakis said. “He must resign and the country should hold national elections as soon as possible.”

In a speech, Mr Tsipras said he would meet with the Greek president to discuss calling elections immediately after the conclusion of a second round of local Greek elections scheduled for next week.

Mr Tsipras said from the Syriza party offices that “the result does not rise to our expectations ... I will not ignore it or quit”.

He credited his government for pulling the country out of the austerity imposed by Greece’s creditors and said voting for the conservative New Democracy would be turning back to “the darkness of austerity, the darkness off crisis, the oligarchs, the International Monetary Fund”.

In the run-up to the election, Mr Tsipras brought to parliament a series of measures that amounted to handouts and defied the conservatives to vote against them. They did not, but accused Mr Tsipras of a desperate gambit for votes.

Under normal circumstances, Mr Tsipras’s mandate would end in October.

Mr Tsipras’s announcement puts the election date at 30 June at the earliest.

With just over a third of voting precincts reporting, New Democracy is leading with 33.62 per cent to Syriza’s 23.86 per cent.

The socialists of the Movement for Change follow with 7.16 per cent, ahead of the Communist Party (5.75 per cent), the far-right Golden Dawn (4.86 per cent), the hard-line nationalist Greek Solution (4.04 per cent) and Diem25, the pan-European movement of Syriza’s first finance minister Yanis Varoufakis (3.15 per cent).

If the results hold, New Democracy will win seven European parliament seats; Syriza will get six; the socialists, the communists and Golden Dawn two each; and Greek Solution and Diem25 one each.

New Democracy also stands to make important gains in the second round of the local and regional elections next Sunday.