Greek logic

Second acts in politics are hardly a novelty, but they rarely roll quite so quickly as in the case of Alexis Tsipras, who was sworn in on September 21 as Greece’s PM for the second time. It is a remarkable victory for the radical politician who led his Syriza movement to triumph in January on the basis of an anti-austerity programme, called a referendum in which a majority of voters rejected the bailout conditions imposed by the so-called troika representing Greece’s creditors, and then immediately caved in to the demands from Brussels.

In the process, Mr Tsipras lost a fifth of his MPs, who broke away to form Popular Unity, an outfit that failed to make an impression in last Sunday’s (September 20) elections. The alternative that Popular Unity offered involved defaulting on Greece’s immense debts and a “Grexit” from the eurozone.

Although a reasonable case could be made for exercising that option as a preferable alternative to austerity measures that in the eyes of many economists — including Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman — are more or less guaranteed to fail, most Greeks are wary of going down that road.

Their trepidation is not hard to understand, given that this would entail something of a journey into the unknown. From the outside, it may well seem like a better bet than the status quo. But who can seriously fault them for being more inclined to bear the ills they have than flying to others they know not of? It is not surprising that Sunday’s vote witnessed a turnout of only 56 per cent. A larger proportion of the electorate than before saw little point in voting when the main options on offer were barely distinguishable from one another.

Syriza’s renewed mandate is less than overwhelming, and concerns about the health of democracy in the land that invented the concept are not misplaced. On the other hand, there is also a certain logic — another concept with Greek origins — to the electoral outcome, in the sense that enough of those who felt obliged to vote chose to reward Mr Tsipras for at least putting up a fight in Brussels. They also appear to have decided that they would rather have Syriza implementing the harsh measures stipulated by the EC, the European Central Bank and the IMF than risk returning to the old order responsible for sinking the Greek economy.

That old order was represented in Sunday’s race by the conservative New Democracy Party, which was running neck-and-neck with Syriza throughout the campaign. Much the same phenomenon was witnessed during the summer’s referendum, when predictions of a small advantage for “yes” voters were spectacularly upended by a resounding “no” — much to the dismay of Mr Tsipras.

For all that, many Greeks consider him to be less deceptive than his predecessors. Syriza’s election campaign could not be predicated on anti-austerity promises this time, but has held out the promise of debt relief, meaningful measures against corrupt elements and vested interests, and less pain for the vulnerable segments of society.

There can be little question that Syriza is a more credible contender than its main rivals for the task of embarking on an anti-corruption drive. Debt relief is backed by the IMF, so it’s not inconceivable, although there have been no obvious signs of it thus far. Easing the pain of austerity could, on the other hand, prove considerably harder, given the troika’s role in micromanaging the economy.

Congratulatory messages from Brussels for the re-elected PM have generally been accompanied by the barely veiled threat that he had better not drag his feet in implementing the draconian measures stipulated by the EU in the most recent bailout agreement.

Relative to many other EU members, impecunious Greece has coped relatively admirably as an entry point for refugees who have provoked an unprecedented European crisis, and its generally humane reception of the human tide from Turkey may well, as former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis contends in a comment in the Guardian, have helped Syriza over the edge. It’s also worth noting, though, that the neo-fascist Golden Third came third on Sunday. It could be chief beneficiary in the event of Mr Tsipras’ failure to navigate the ship of state through a narrow passage between a rock and a hard place.

By arrangement with Dawn