Greeks head to parliamentary polls

Greek voters started casting their ballots on Sunday in the first parliamentary elections since the country exited the international bailouts last year.

The polling stations nationwide are open between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. local time (0400-1600 GMT). About 9.9 million citizens of 17 years and above are eligible to vote.

Fearing high abstention rates, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras made the plea for high participation after casting his ballot in Athens.

"Each voter's decision will be crucial for the outcome. I would like to call on all citizens to go to the polling stations to exercise their right to vote. They should all be present in this critical decision for our country," he said in a statement.

"I believe that it is a crucial battle, and we are fighting with optimism and confidence so that peoples' sacrifices and efforts will not go to waste and our country's course forward will not be obstructed," he added.

Tsipras was forced to go to early national elections following his party's heavy defeat in the European Parliament elections in May and local government elections on June 2. Otherwise, his government's term would end in October this year.

The first official estimates are expected around 9 p.m. (1800 GMT), according to the Interior Ministry. The final results will be released Monday.

A total of 20 parties are running the campaign, which demands a 3-percent threshold to enter the 300-member parliament, according to the Greek electoral law.

Most recent opinion surveys indicated that Greece's main opposition conservative New Democracy (ND) party would win with a margin of 8-15 percentage points over the radical left SYRIZA party led by Tsipras and have an outright majority in the parliament.

Polls also showed that the center-left Movement of Change would rank third, likely followed by the Communist Party of Greece.

Moreover, the far-right party Golden Dawn might struggle to make the 3 percent threshold for the first time since 2012, when the party entered the parliament unprecedentedly by capitalizing on voters' disgruntlement at the depression brought by the debt crisis.

The economy is once again the main issue for consideration when voters cast their ballots, according to polls.

Greece sank into a serious debt crisis in 2009 and signed three harsh bailout programs with international lenders since 2010.

The country exited the bailout era last August, with its economy having slashed by a quarter.

Despite the recent improvement of financial indexes under the SYRIZA government, the average Greek households and businesses have not actually felt the recovery, as the unemployment rate is still the highest in Europe, and taxpayers are burdened.

In the campaign, ND put forward policies to facilitate investments to boost growth and create jobs, as well as a renegotiation with lenders of the post-bailout goal to achieve primary surpluses in the next few years, as the country remains under Eurozone's supervision.