ATHENS: Greece’s ruling New Democracy party was set for a crushing victory in a parliamentary election on Sunday, early results showed, defeating the opposition Syriza but likely to fall below the threshold to form a government on its own.

With more than half the votes counted, conservative New Democracy took a commanding lead of 40.9%, trouncing the radical leftist Syriza, which governed from 2015 to 2019, trailing with 20.1%. Analysts said New Democracy was likely be short of a clear majority.

A newly introduced electoral system distributes seats based on how many parties get into the 300-member parliament, raising or lowering the bar for a majority accordingly to anything between 42% and 47% of the vote.

Greece’s interior ministry projected that New Democracy could win 145 seats in parliament, six short of an absolute majority. The result was however a boost to incumbent Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose administration had to contend with a wiretapping scandal, the Covid pandemic, a cost of living crisis and a deadly rail crash in February which triggered public outrage.