Greece's defeated conservatives call leadership election

By Angeliki Koutantou ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's conservative New Democracy party, easily beaten into second place in the weekend national election, said on Tuesday it would hold a leadership election as soon as possible. New Democracy went into Sunday's vote under interim leader Vangelis Meimarakis virtually neck-and-neck in opinion polls with leftist rival Syriza. But Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras, won 35 percent of the vote, giving it 145 seats in the 300-seat parliament, with New Democracy trailing far behind on 28 percent and 75 seats. Meimarakis took over in July after former prime minister Antonis Samaras stepped down in response to a strong 'No' vote in a referendum on whether Greece should accept terms of what became its third international bailout. Meimarakis "has played a very important role and fought hard in this election", senior party official Makis Voridis, who was re-elected on Sunday, told Mega television on Tuesday. Samaras said after stepping down that his successor would stay in place until spring 2016 at the latest when New Democracy would hold a leadership ballot among all party members. It was not immediately clear if either Samaras or Meimarakis would stand again for the party helm. Tsipras, who eventually signed Greece up to its third bailout despite the referendum outcome, took the oath of office for a second term as prime minister on Monday and was expected to name his cabinet by Tuesday evening. New Democracy, which ruled Greece as a single-party government from 2004 to 2009, strongly opposed the country's first two international bailouts. After winning a parliamentary election in June 2012, it formed a coalition with socialist PASOK as its main partner. The coalition implemented bailout reforms before being ousted at the polls by Syriza in January 2015. (writing by John Stonestreet; Editing by Mark Heinrich)