Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is celebrating an emphatic victory after his conservative party won Sunday's election by a landslide.

Mitsotakis's New Democracy party won 40.8 percent of the votes, 20 points ahead of left wing SYRIZA party leader Alexis Tsipras, who took just 20.1 percent.

‌Heading into the polls, none of the surveys or opinion polls predicted such a landslide, with most expecting a closely fought battle between the two parties.

‌Despite enjoying a landslide victory, Mitsotakis fell short of a majority in Greece's 300-seat parliament due to a new electoral system of proportional representation. 

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To win a majority, Mitsotakis must either call another election or seek a coalition partner from a smaller party. The former of those two options seems most likely.

On Monday, Mitsotakis will meet with the President of Greece, Katerina Sakelaropoulou. She will offer him a mandate to form a coalition, which Mitsotakis is likely to refuse. She will then pass it to the next two parties, and if that fails she will arrange a caretaker government until new elections are announced.

‌"The New Democracy party has the approval of the people to govern independently,”said Mitsotakis in the aftermath of his win.

‌The mood for the left-wing SYRIZA party is a sombre one.

‌Members of the Executive Office and the Political Planning of SYRIZA will meet at the party's offices this week to make an "anatomy" of the result and examine what went wrong, but mainly what can be changed ahead of the next election battle.

‌Tsipras may choose to step down, but things will be clearer after the second round of elections which will take place either by the end of June or July 2.

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