Greek leftist Tsipras sworn in as PM to fight bailout terms

Greece's President Karolos Papoulias (R) welcomes Alexis Tsipras, Syriza party leader and winner of the Greek parliamentary elections, before Tsipras' swearing-in ceremony as Greece's first leftist prime minister in Athens January 26, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

"SELF-REINFORCING CRISIS"

Yanis Varoufakis, an economist and outspoken blogger crusading against austerity, was expected to become finance minister when the cabinet is unveiled on Tuesday, senior party officials said.

He wrote on Monday that Greeks had "put an end to a self-reinforcing crisis that produces indignity in Greece and feeds Europe's darkest forces".

Reaction from financial markets to Syriza's victory was largely muted, with the euro recovering from a tumble to an 11-year low against the dollar on initial results. Greek stocks fell 3 percent, led lower by bank stocks including Piraeus Bank which fell 17.6 percent. Greek 10-year bond yields rose but stayed below the levels seen in the run-up to the vote.

For the first time in more than 40 years, neither the New Democracy party nor the centre-left PASOK, the two forces that had dominated Greek politics since the fall of a military junta in 1974, will be in power, beaten by a party that has until recently always been at the fringe.

Together with last week's decision by the ECB to pump billions of euros into the euro zone's flagging economy, Syriza's victory marks a turning point in the long euro zone crisis.

It signals a move away from the budget rigour championed by Germany as the accepted approach to dealing with troubled economies, though it is unclear what concessions Syriza will be able to wring from creditors.

Both IMF head Christine Lagarde, who said the Fund would continue supporting Greece, and the chairman of the eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said they wanted to work with the new government.