Syriza's ex economics minister, Vourofakis, wrote in the British 'Guardian' (22 September) that the economic deal made by Alexis Tsipras with the Troika would fail. Indeed his argument was that it has been tried already, over 6 years, and 5 General Elections, and that it has already, definitively, failed.
Syriza gained 2.2 million votes in the elections in January 2015 and 1.9 million in September. They therefore lost 15% of their vote between the two elections. (The overall Greek vote declined by 13% from January.) Syriza now leads the government in coalition with ANEL, a right wing party opposed to austerity, as it did after January's election, when it opposed any more deals with the Troika.
What has changed?
Back in June, when the Greek people voted on the Troika's latest proposals in a referendum, 64% of the Greek voters voted. 2.2 million voted 'yes' and 3.6 million voted 'no', despite the 'no' vote almost certainly requiring Greece to leave the Euro and repudiate their debt mountain. Alexus Tsipras then led Syriza in the opposite direction to the Greek peoples' decision and accepted the most recent Troika plan.
As Vourofakis has explained, the Greek people now face another impossible economic mountain to climb. But there have been other, political, changes that flow from the Tsipras led Syriza rejection of the referendum result.
1. 'Nothing to vote for.'
After the results of the June referendum were dumped by the Tsipras leadership there was nothing to vote for in the September General Election. The new Syriza leadership ( a third of its 149 MPs resigned) were simply, in effect, another pro-austerity party. And some sort of EU organised austerity plan was now the only choice. The new Syriza made much in the election of their 'new politics' and there was some truth in the fact that they had made a fight with the EU and that they had been open with the Greek people about that fight. But there were many attempts made by the new Syriza in the election campaign to 'soften' and to 'spin' their latest concessions and the previous hope and enthusiasm of the anti-austerity electorate had dissipated according to all the main Greek political commentators. Popular Unity, led by the Syriza anti-austerity rebels, failed to make an electoral impact.
While 'Golden Dawn' (Greek's fascists) only slightly increased their vote, they are Greece's third party with 18 MPs despite a leadership that has just come out of prison still on bail for murder and other serious crimes. They are now the major 'anti-austerity' mainstream party, albeit that the (mainly) magnificent reaction of the Greek people to the refugee crisis so far shows that all is far from lost.
2. Erosion of the mobilisation of the Greek people.
The tremendous efforts made at the base of the movement for change in Greece, the 'Solidarity for All' structures that provided health care, teaching, shelter and food, have been hit. At its height in the summer more than 3 million Greeks were using these self organised resources and facilities. While it was never the plan of the organisers of the solidarity movement to stand in for what should be any modern state's responsibilities, nevertheless the tremendous inspiration created by the movement suggested to all that the Greek people could, and would be able to organise a new type of society.
The Solidarity for All umbrella for the movement seems to have blown out by Syriza's turn. At the most severely practical end of the spectrum the health clinics, at least in and around Athens, seem to be the least effected so far.
3. A critical social/political alliance has been pulled apart.
Greek polling (except the post election night polls) are notoriously innaccurate. Nevertheless pre election polling consistently showed that Syriza had lost its majority among the unemployed and among young people aged between 18 and 24. (Indeed the latter group showed a consistent majority for Golden Dawn. GD's previous base among young people in Greece had been largely overturned by the time of the January 2015 General Election.) The new Syriza did not poll a majority among 18 - 44 year olds either.
Additionally, Syriza's radical wing, the 'conscience' of the party, certainly the group with the most history of involvement in the Greek squares movement and in Solidarity for All, in other words the group with the most contact with the Greek peoples' daily lives and resistence, have now been definitively cut out of the Syriza alliance.
4. A new/old leadership emerges.
Tsipras's leadership of Syriza has always been a major factor in the popularity of the party. Indeed part of the left in Europe has 'theorised' this new type of leadership phenomena (see blog re Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias, 8 September). But the contact that popular leaders like Chavez had with the Venezuelan people, were premised on the enormous self activity and mobilisation of the poor and disadvantaged, who could see, in practice, how the leadership directly and concretely supported their efforts and their aims. At the same time, the oligarchs and the 'great families' were confronted and denounced.
While popular and displaying a 'common touch' (no frills and no social pretensions) Tsipras never displayed such radical charactersitics (despite being 'suspected' of them.) But since the June referendum his personal leadership style has turned into its opposite. Tsipras's eldest son enrolled into one of Greece's most prestigious, expensive, private schools in September. Tsipras and his family spent part of the summer in a villa owned by a wealthy Greek shipowner and commuting to Athens by helicopter. (See Financial Times, 19 September.) Earlier in the same week Tsipras posted a Twitter cartoon of himself as the messiah which was captioned
'There may not be any miracles if you abstain.'
It's just a joke! Yes, but it suggests how Tsipras now sees the role and function of the Greek people in their own future.
These and other changes in Greece's political life do not (yet) amount to a definitive defeat. But they are signs of a major stepback. And we will see in the October elections in Portugal and the December elections in Spain what the Greek retreat means for other anti-austerity political forces in Europe.
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