This is not 2015
The SYRIZA government was an accident of history. A farce. It arose when Greece went bankrupt and people’s anger turned against – rightfully so – the parties that had ruled the country until then: PASOK and New Democracy. The then leader of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, took advantage of this anger by promising a magic money tree, the tearing up of Greece’s bailout deals and a return to the carefree days. He took power in a coalition with the ridiculous leader of right-wing ANEL, Panos Kammenos. Eventually, he crash-landed in reality and signed a third bailout which he implemented to the letter, making the most of a bad situation.
Tsipras tried to rebalance things after his infamous about-face on the referendum he called, he achieved the Prespes Agreement with North Macedonia, but he added an additional 100 billion euros to the country’s debt burden. When people realized the mockery they turned their backs on the “ruling left.” SYRIZA did not even secure 20% in the last general elections and its leader went home.
The despair of some SYRIZA voters from the great victory of New Democracy led to the emergence of Stefanos Kasselakis, who came out of nowhere, as new leader of the party, because he declared that he could defeat Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He knew nothing about politics. He is a rather conservative 35-year-old businessman with a bright smile and good appearance who had come to Greece with his partner and dog for a holiday, but ended up being elected leader of the main opposition!
After some accelerated lessons in political history, the new leader visited the island of Makronissos (a notorious military prison and concentration camp for leftists and communists used until 1974), started to declare himself a leftist and read speeches and announcements of SYRIZA official Pavlos Polakis, which were directed against the prime minister and promised better days. Of course, once in a while his true liberal beliefs slipped out, such as when he spoke to the SEV industries association or The Economist, but he quickly got to the heart of his new role. He promoted those who applauded him and summarily removed those who opposed him, calling them the “fifth column of New Democracy.”
Now that his omnipotence has been secured within the party, and no one can interfere in his “unmediated” contact with the public, Kasselakis now considers himself to be the messiah of the Left, and he expects SYRIZA’s percentage to rise at the European Parliament elections. Just as was the case in 2015. He forgets, however, that the public is now suspicious and the country with the seventh largest growth in the EU is nowhere close to bankruptcy, as it was when the leftist party rose to prominence. The new farce will lead to another tragedy.
