Greece's conservative New Democracy (ND) party has "won" the country's general election on Sunday but gathered only about 22% of the votes, preliminary results show.

New Democracy is followed by the ruling party in 2009-2011, the Socialist party PASOK, which received 15%, and has barely come ahead of the third, the anti-bailout Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) with an exit poll projection of 14.3%.

The anti-German "Independent Greeks" populist party got 10.08%, the communist party KKE received 8.23%, and the Democratic  Left got almost 6%

Surprisingly, the far-right Golden Dawn party has won approximately 6.2%.

The results suggest that New Democracy and PASOK the only two parties supporting the anti-crisis agreement with the International Monetary Fund and the EU will fail to win a total of 38% of the vote.

Calculations have shown that the two pro-bailout parties would struggle to achieve majority in the 300-seat Parliament if they gather less than 38% of the vote.

"A difficult result for ND but more importantly, a difficult result for Greece," New Democracy's Makis Voridis, a former Infrastructure Minister, has told NET TV, as cited by Ekathimerini.

The initiatl exit poll results pojected an even stronger performance for the far left and the far right in Greece: New Democracy 17-20%, SYRIZA 15.5-18.5%, PASOK 14-17%, Independent Greeks 10-12%, KKE 7.5-9.5%, Golden Dawn 6-8%, Dem Left 4.5-6.5%, LAOS 2.5-3.5%, Ecogreens 2.5-3.5%, Drasi 2-2.8%, Dem Alliance 2-2.5%.

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