Greece will be proud again

Greece’s new conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was sworn in yesterday after a sweeping election victory put him in charge of the EU’s most indebted member with promises to end a decade of economic crisis.

“The Greek people gave us a strong mandate to change Greece. We will honour it to the full,” Mitsotakis said after taking his oath of office in a televised ceremony.

“Hard work begins today. I am completely confident that we will prove equal to the challenge.” The cabinet will be sworn in today and will meet tomorrow, he said.

The 51-year-old Harvard graduate and former McKinsey consultant took the oath of office in the presidential mansion in the presence of his wife and three children.

He then walked next door to the prime minister’s office, where he had a brief discussion with defeated leftist premier Alexis Tsipras.“A painful cycle has closed,” Mitsotakis said in a televised address  immediately following his electoral victory, adding that Greece would   “proudly raise its head again” on his watch.

The US-educated conservative faces a hefty challenge as he takes over  from Tsipras, who imposed austerity measures required under a bailout  to keep Greece in the eurozone.

The country’s public debt last year stood at 335 billion euros ($376 billion), or 180 percent of GDP.

The debt load is forecast to fall to 168 percent of GDP this year, but only under belt-tightening brought in under Tsipras’s Syriza party -- something that Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party says is stifling growth.

The tricky job of keeping Greece’s international creditors onside while easing the hardship on Greeks -- by lowering taxes and renegotiating fiscal targets -- could result in a short honeymoon phase for Mitsotakis.