The new leader wasted no time in using the opportunity to lambast his former comrades. “We denounce these ‘express’ elections and a government that resigned so that we would go into an electoral process of only a few weeks,” Lafazanis told Pavlopoulos, claiming the poll was a deliberate bid to keep Greeks in the dark over the terms attached to the bailout accord Tsipras agreed with creditors earlier this month.

“We will use this mandate to demonstrate that a consistent anti-memorandum government can, and must, exist in this country. We will use [it], first and foremost, to speak with society and social organisations.”