by Our Foreign Desk

SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras prepared last night to form his second Greek government this year, this time with EU leaders’ blessing.

Having been elected on an anti-austerity platform in January, he eventually caved in to the demands of the European Central Bank and the EU Commission, accepting another ruinous banking bailout ultimatum.

EU president Donald Tusk congratulated him yesterday, expressing his hope that the election result would “provide for the political stability necessary to face all the challenges at hand.”

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration would also “work closely and in partnership” with the new Greek government.

EU creditors are expected to review Greece’s cuts programme next month, while the government will have to draft the 2016 state budget. It must oversee a critical bank recapitalisation programme, without which depositors of over €100,000 might be forced to contribute.

Syriza took 35.5 per cent of the popular vote on a much-reduced turnout that mirrored popular disappointment with Syriza’s failure to honour its pledges.

The conservative New Democracy scored 28.1 per cent and the nazi Golden Dawn was able to capitalise on anti-refugee sentiment to achieve 7 per cent.

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) leader Dimitris Koutsoumpas, whose party won 5.5 per cent, said that the KKE would stand by the side of the Greek people against the government, noting that Syriza and its right-wing Anel coalition partner would implement the harsh bailout they brought to Greece.

He saluted the hundreds of thousands of Greeks who honoured KKE with their votes and swore that the party would use “its political, electoral and parliamentary strength to work for a comprehensive regrouping and strengthening of the labour-people’s movement for the construction of a great social, people’s alliance.”

Mr Koutsoumpas insisted that the KKE was “the only force whose struggle against the memorandums is at the same time a consistent struggle against the capitalist system itself, the system that also creates the predatory alliances that only bring new torment for the people.”