Guardian’s Athens correspondent Helena Smith outlines the uphill battle Greek PM Alexis Tsipras faces after his party’s heavy defeat by over 9 points in Sunday’s European Elections to conservative major opposition party New Democracy. The article titled, “Tsipras faces fight to stay in power after EU election mauling”, also makes reference to the leftist party’s dismal performance among the Greek Diaspora of Australia and America, who voted for the first time, as the Macedonian issue played a key role in swaying the Greeks abroad in favour of New Democracy which received 33.9% to SYRIZA’s 15.3%.

Four days after announcing snap elections, the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras faces an uphill struggle to remain in power as results from Sunday’s European elections showed voters abroad overwhelmingly rejecting the leftist leader.
After suffering an unexpectedly heavy defeat at home, Tsipras’s Syriza party was also resoundingly rebuffed by diaspora Greeks, it emerged on Thursday. With 100% of the vote counted, the country’s interior ministry reported that 33.9% had cast ballots in favour of the centre-right New Democracy party in contrast to 15.3% for Syriza.
The result is further proof of the herculean task now confronting the beleaguered leftists before early elections on 7 July. Tsipras was forced to announce the vote, four months ahead of schedule, after Syriza lost to New Democracy by an unprecedented 9.3 percentage points – the widest margin of defeat ever in a European election in Greece.

read more at theguerdian.com