ATHENS, Greece — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras conceded defeat Sunday after a partial vote count showed Greece’s opposition conservatives comfortably winning the first parliamentary election since the country emerged from international bailouts.

The conservative New Democracy party of Kyriakos Mitsotakis had 39.7% of the vote compared to Tsipras’ Syriza party with 31.5% after nearly 60% of ballots were tallied.

The result was a stinging blow to Tsipras, who had insisted he could overturn a sizeable gap in opinion polls running up to the election, which he asked to hold several months before his term expires in the fall.

“The citizens have made their choice. We fully respect the popular vote,” Tsipras said in his concession speech from central Athens.

Official projections based on early partial results also showed the extreme right-wing Golden Dawn party teetering on the lower side of the 3% threshold needed to be in parliament. Golden Dawn became the third-largest party in parliament during Greece’s financial crisis.

Greece is gradually emerging from the crippling financial crisis that saw unemployment and poverty levels skyrocket and the economy shrink by a quarter.

Greece was dependent for survival until last summer on three successive bailouts and had to take deep reforms such as massive spending cuts and tax hikes to qualify for the rescue loans.