Alexis Tsipras the leader of left-wing Syriza party waves to his supporters after the election results at the party’s main electoral center in Athens
Greek left-wing leader Alexis Tsipras was set to receive the formal mandate to govern for a second straight term yesterday, after his unexpectedly decisive victory in early national elections that saw most Greeks back parties committed to the debt-heavy country’s harsh bailout commitments.
At 41, Tsipras now dominates Greek politics, having seen off both the main, center-right opposition and his own party rebels despite a sharp policy U-turn that kept the country in the eurozone but ditched the anti-austerity platform which first swept him to power in January.
Tsipras quickly announced that he will renew his pro-European coalition with the small, right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL) party, which beat opinion polls to clear the three percent parliamentary entry threshold.
With more than 99.7 percent of Sunday’s votes counted, Tsipras’ Syriza had 35.5 percent, while New Democracy trailed with 28.1 percent. But in a sign of widespread discontent, more than four in 10 Greeks stayed away from the parliamentary election — the second this year — and Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn remained the country’s third-strongest party with 7 percent.
Just two months ago, Syriza abandoned its pledges to reverse income cuts, tax hikes and labor reforms under duress to secure a third, 86-billion-euro (USD97 billion) international bailout for the recession-battered country. Tsipras has promised to put as human a face as possible on the inevitable new cutbacks and pension reforms his government must enforce to continue receiving the rescue loans.
“We will soften certain elements of the agreement, without breaking our (bailout) commitments,” Dimitris Mardas, deputy finance minister in Tsipras’ first government, said yesterday.
Greek stocks opened more than 1 percent lower, but were about flat in later morning trading.
Berenberg Bank analyst Holger Schmieding said the result had several positive features for markets, and Syriza now has a clear mandate to do whatever it takes to keep Greece in the euro currency club — which it looked set to crash out of before the summer bailout deal.
“After years of almost unprecedented crisis, the vast majority of Greeks has once again endorsed parties that are promising to keep the country in the euro even if that implies thorough and painful reforms,” he said.
Many Greeks voiced apprehension over the impending cutbacks, which follow a six-year wave of austerity measures that lopped a quarter off the economy and saw unemployment rise to 25 percent.
“I am happy that Tsipras was elected, but he should work,” said 54-year-old mechanic Kostas Tabaris. “He must (carry out) reforms, fix the crisis, help the poor, give presents, money to everyone.”
Civil servant Nikos Georgopoulos, 40, said he found the result disappointing.
“I am pessimistic, because we already knew which line of politics will be followed,” he said. “The politics of the third (bailout). So we know that there is nothing good for the Greek people to wait for.”
Just seven months into his term, Tsipras lost his majority in parliament after far-left rebels in his party opposed the tough conditions demanded by eurozone countries for the new rescue package. But rebels, who formed a breakaway party pledging to take Greece out of the eurozone, failed to get elected to parliament.
Teneo Intelligence analyst Wolfgango Piccoli said the overall result shows that Tsipras is now “the only player in town.”
“His supreme political skill is only matched by the incompetence of his political adversaries,” Piccoli said. Nicholas Paphitis, Athens, AP
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