With 75 percent of the vote counted, the center-right New Democracy party was on track to win the first national elections since Greece exited a bailout regime a year ago, signaling a clean break with years of firebrand populism and a return to mainstream politics.

Initial results give New Democracy 39.6 percent of the vote, a strong mandate in a country governed for a decade by fragile coalitions.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras conceded defeat in a live TV broadcast, saying, “The result has been determined… but we will be back.”

Kyriakos Mitsotakis of New Democracy thanked the Greek people in a victory speech, saying, “I know the difficulties lying ahead… I don’t request a grace period because we don’t have time for it.” He added, “Transparency and meritocracy will return to Greece and our country’s voice will be heard in Europe.”

Mitsotakis will be sworn in as prime minister at 1 pm on Monday.

The results suggest a complete reversal of fortunes in Greece, with a return to a party that has been a pillar of Greece’s pre-bailout establishment. Initial projections for the ruling Syriza, Coalition of the Radical Left party, give it 31.6 percent of the vote.

In May, Syriza called a snap election after suffering a major blow in European Parliament elections.

Mitsotakis is the scion of a Greek political dynasty whose father also served as leader under the same party. A liberal reformist, Mitsotakis promises to rebrand the country and change its image as Europe’s problem child in the wake of an eight-year depression that saw its economy slashed by 25 percent – the worst contraction in a developed economy since the end of World War II.

Mitsotakis says his priority is to reignite the economy by slashing taxes and regulations, while attracting investment.

Greece’s economic recovery is underway, although still weak and only forecast to grow by about 2 percent annually for the next three years. Mitsotakis’ plan is to implement rapid changes, such as privatization, and transform Greece into a more business-friendly country.

He will then go to the country’s lenders in a bid to negotiate a new deal. “I believe I can negotiate with the Europeans more fiscal space and the markets are showing that they are quite excited about us coming into power,” he has said. Much of his success depends on clinching this deal.

But for all his reform plans, Mitsotakis comes from the same political establishment that plunged Greece into the crisis in the first place, and which voters rejected in 2015. The vote for the markets-friendly old guard is equally a protest vote against a government that over-promised and failed to deliver; a message to populists worldwide that things can change and then change back.

Populism coming to an end?

Greece was the first country in the last decade to bring grand scale populism to the mainstream European arena. Now it is the first to firmly reject it, in an election result that may signal the beginning of the end for extreme populism in Europe.

“Greece’s first-hand experience of populism and the extreme right has enabled the country to exit from the biggest crisis in the eurozone with greater maturity,” says Nick Malkoutzis, the political editor of MacroPolis. “It feels like a cycle is ending and the country is returning to political normality.”

What Greeks crave more than anything after so many years of living in constant crisis is stability, he adds.

In Greece’s new age of pragmatism, Mitsotakis personifies the country’s proactive, comprehensive reform plan that will lead the country out of the economic labyrinth. He will be judged, however, by a country no longer easily wooed by empty promises.