Extremist leftist party Syriza's leader Alexis Tsipras won the national elections on 25 January 2015 (26 January in IST) and has vowed that by going against "austerity" in the country, he would end Greece's five years of "humiliation and suffering."
With nearly 75% of the total votes counted, Syriza is expected to win at least 149 seats - just two short of an absolute majority. The anti-austerity party's leader Tsipras was quoted as saying that the "Greeks wrote history" by BBC.
Syriza's victory, promises Tsipras, marks an end to the country's "vicious cycle of austerity." Referring to the country's biggest international lenders - the European Union, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) - he said, that the troika is a thing of the past. He also promised to negotiate a fair and mutually beneficial financial solution to save Greece from financial crisis.
While Tsipras has vowed to end Greece's "five years of humiliation and pain" imposed by the international creditors, his win has raised fears about the country's future in the EU. In fact, the election results are pegged to be one of the key topics of discussion during Monday's meeting of 19 eurozone finance ministers.
Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said he hoped that the new government will not make "promises it cannot keep and the country cannot afford."
Belgian Finance Minister Johan Van Overtveld has said that Greece "must respect the rules of monetary union," although he added that there was room for some flexibility, reported BBC.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer also said Tsipras' promises would be hard to keep and that they are "incompatible with what the eurozone currently demands."
