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1st LD Writethru: Greek Leftist leader Alexis Tsipras sworn in as PM

Xinhua, September 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Greece's Radical Left SYRIZA party leader Alexis Tsipras was sworn in on Monday as Prime Minister as the winner of Sunday's general elections.

The 41-year-old Leftist leader took a civil oath instead of a religious oath to "serve the laws, the Constitution and the interests of Greek people" in a ceremony held at the Presidential Mansion in Athens.

A few hours earlier on Monday Tsipras had formally received from the President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos the mandate to form a government for a second time in eight months.

SYRIZA won 35.5 percent of votes and 145 seats in the next 300-member strong assembly, according to the final official results released by the Interior Ministry.

On Sunday night a few hours after the closing of the ballots Tsipras and Panos Kammenos, the leader of the Right-wing Independent Greeks party (ANEL), the junior partner in Tsipras' first government from January to August, announced their intention to renew the coalition partnership.

With the 10 seats ANEL secured by garnering 3.7 of the votes, the new government will control 155 seats in the next chamber.

The announcement of its composition and swearing in ceremony were expected to be made by Wednesday noon so that Tsipras can travel later on Wednesday to Brussels to participate in the forthcoming EU summit on the migrant and refugee crisis, representing Anastasiades as well.

"I think that today Europe can realize its responsibilities in a European problem," Tsipras noted during his meeting with Pavlopoulos.

"We were given unfortunately an opportunity under this crisis to realize, in particular our partners, that at the core of the EU, including the euro zone, is the human being. The currency and the economy should serve the human being," Pavlopoulos said. Endit