Alexis Tsipras: Greece’s left-wing firebrand has run out of steam

The sudden rise to power of Alexis Tsipras as a radical left-wing firebrand was a difficult moment for the entire European Union, taking Greece to the brink of exiting the euro.

Eight years later, the one-time political iconoclast faces a more mundane challenge: saving his Syrian party from the ignominy of being replaced as Greece’s main opposition party.

Tsipras, who moved steadily towards the center during his 2015-19 premiership, is now fighting to save his career after Syriza’s vote share fell by more than 10 percent in the May 21 election. He acknowledged that the result was “unexpected and painful”, especially during the cost of living for an opposition party.

With another election due on June 25, Syriza’s arch-rival on the centre-left is now looking to capitalize on it at home. Pasok, an establishment party that dominated Greek politics before the financial crisis, will seek to overtake Tsipras and restore its pre-eminent role in the Hellenic parliament, after increasing its vote share by three percent in recent elections.

Tsipras’ fight for relevance reflects wider changes in Greek politics, as Europe’s financial bad boy repairs its economy to return to the fastest growth rate in the eurozone. Greek voters appear eager to move on – and to boycott politicians who once defied the bailout years.

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To make matters worse for Tsipras, the ruling New Democracy party won more votes than it had four years earlier, seemingly breaking the norm of Greek politics. The result assured Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that he would secure a majority government if fresh elections were held in a month.

Perhaps the only consolation: a party led by Tsipras’ former political partner Yannis Varoufakis, the former finance minister who handled Germany during the crisis, emerged from the election with an even more disappointing result, falling short of the 3 percent threshold needed to enter. Greek parliament failed to reach. After his short stint as minister, Varoufakis left Syriza and formed his own party, MeRA25, which recently campaigned to introduce a digital system of payments called “Dimitra”, named after the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture. . The voters were not convinced.

Analysts put the blame entirely on Tsipras’ court for Syriza’s poor performance, citing his failure to adapt his rhetoric to Greece’s new reality.

Stella Laddy, associate professor at Queen Mary University of London, said Tsipras “did not present a real policy proposal by failing to convince his own voters”.

In contrast, New Democracy’s message was positive, emphasizing that it would create stability and take the country forward, said Wolfgango Piccoli, co-president of political risk at advisory company Teneo. Mitsotakis “realized that the public wanted an end to this toxic era of debt crisis politics”, he said.

“Syriza was a child of the crisis and has not managed to outgrow it,” said Stathis Kalayavas, Gladstone Professor of Government at the University of Oxford.

During the campaign, Syriza invoked the polarized rhetoric of the decade-long economic downturn, claiming that small and medium-sized companies were “drowning in debt” and that “young men and women are seeing their dreams crushed”. As hundreds of thousands of families have suffered. Capture.

But the message was hollow. Kalyavas said, “Greece had gone beyond this.”

In contrast, Mitsotakis’ government, which was embroiled in its own string of scandals including the wiretapping of PASOK leader Nikos Androlakis, managed to avoid and stay away from the charges. The new election would be held under a different electoral law that would likely give the prime minister’s party a bonus of up to 50 parliamentary seats, enough to allow him to govern alone.

“People saw that there was a sense of crisis management that was missing in the economic crisis years and voted for someone who promised more predictability in his life,” Kalyavas said.

Tsipras has vowed to stay in office for the time being, despite vowing to take personal responsibility for the poor election result. “We are responsible for the citizens who did not vote for us,” he said at the party’s first meeting after the election.

But some say that if Syriza’s vote share falls further, it will find it difficult to maintain its position.

Kalayavas said, “Syriza is very much attached to Tsipras”, as he was the one who lifted the party out of marginal obscurity and brought it to power. “At the same time, he is perceived as a political loser. This is dangerous for politics.

The sudden rise to power of Alexis Tsipras as a radical left-wing firebrand was a difficult moment for the entire European Union, taking Greece to the brink of exiting the euro.

Eight years later, the one-time political iconoclast faces a more mundane challenge: saving his Syrian party from the ignominy of being replaced as Greece’s main opposition party.

Tsipras, who moved steadily towards the center during his 2015-19 premiership, is now fighting to save his career after Syriza’s vote share fell by more than 10 percent in the May 21 election. He acknowledged that the result was “unexpected and painful”, especially during the cost of living for an opposition party.

With another election due on June 25, Syriza’s arch-rival on the centre-left is now looking to capitalize on it at home. Pasok, an establishment party that dominated Greek politics before the financial crisis, will seek to overtake Tsipras and restore its pre-eminent role in the Hellenic parliament, after increasing its vote share by three percent in recent elections.

Tsipras’ fight for relevance reflects wider changes in Greek politics, as Europe’s financial bad boy repairs its economy to return to the fastest growth rate in the eurozone. Greek voters appear eager to move on – and to boycott politicians who once defied the bailout years.

You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is probably due to being offline or JavaScript is disabled in your browser.

To make matters worse for Tsipras, the ruling New Democracy party won more votes than it had four years earlier, seemingly breaking the norm of Greek politics. The result assured Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that he would secure a majority government if fresh elections were held in a month.

Perhaps the only consolation: a party led by Tsipras’ former political partner Yannis Varoufakis, the former finance minister who handled Germany during the crisis, emerged from the election with an even more disappointing result, falling short of the 3 percent threshold needed to enter. Greek parliament failed to reach. After his short stint as minister, Varoufakis left Syriza and formed his own party, MeRA25, which recently campaigned to introduce a digital system of payments called “Dimitra”, named after the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture. . The voters were not convinced.

Analysts put the blame entirely on Tsipras’ court for Syriza’s poor performance, citing his failure to adapt his rhetoric to Greece’s new reality.

Stella Laddy, associate professor at Queen Mary University of London, said Tsipras “did not present a real policy proposal by failing to convince his own voters”.

In contrast, New Democracy’s message was positive, emphasizing that it would create stability and take the country forward, said Wolfgango Piccoli, co-president of political risk at advisory company Teneo. Mitsotakis “realized that the public wanted an end to this toxic era of debt crisis politics”, he said.

“Syriza was a child of the crisis and has not managed to outgrow it,” said Stathis Kalayavas, Gladstone Professor of Government at the University of Oxford.

During the campaign, Syriza invoked the polarized rhetoric of the decade-long economic downturn, claiming that small and medium-sized companies were “drowning in debt” and that “young men and women are seeing their dreams crushed”. As hundreds of thousands of families have suffered. Capture.

But the message was hollow. Kalyavas said, “Greece had gone beyond this.”

In contrast, Mitsotakis’ government, which was embroiled in its own string of scandals including the wiretapping of PASOK leader Nikos Androlakis, managed to avoid and stay away from the charges. The new election would be held under a different electoral law that would likely give the prime minister’s party a bonus of up to 50 parliamentary seats, enough to allow him to govern alone.

“People saw that there was a sense of crisis management that was missing in the economic crisis years and voted for someone who promised more predictability in his life,” Kalyavas said.

Tsipras has vowed to stay in office for the time being, despite vowing to take personal responsibility for the poor election result. “We are responsible for the citizens who did not vote for us,” he said at the party’s first meeting after the election.

But some say that if Syriza’s vote share falls further, it will find it difficult to maintain its position.

Kalayavas said, “Syriza is very much attached to Tsipras”, as he was the one who lifted the party out of marginal obscurity and brought it to power. “At the same time, he is perceived as a political loser. This is dangerous for politics.