by Anthony Manduca, Times of Malta,
The victory of the left-wing Syriza party in Greece is a personal triumph for Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who won two general elections and a national referendum in the last nine months. Tsipras’ re-election is even more remarkable when one considers the massive U-turn he performed by accepting the latest bailout package proposed by the European Union and the other international creditors.
One cannot forget that Tsipras was first elected in January on a clear platform to reject the type of austerity measures that he has now agreed to. Furthermore, voters also backed him in a referendum in July when 61 per cent of the electorate voted to reject the bailout package being offered to Greece.
Soon after the vote, however, Tsipras agreed to a deal with the country’s creditors which some would consider even harsher than the package voters threw out in the referendum. Nevertheless, there is a possibility that Greece will be offered some debt relief (definitely a good thing) if it carries out the reforms it has promised to introduce.
Before going into the implications and challenges presented by this electoral victory it is important to analyse the result and compare it to last January’s poll. Syriza remained the largest party with 35.5 per cent of the vote, slightly down from the 36.3 per cent it got in January. Under Greece’s electoral system the party with the most votes gets 50 additional ‘bonus seats’ and Syriza ended up with 145 seats, just six short of an absolute majority.
Syriza was able to form a coalition with its partner in the previous government, the right-wing Independent Greeks party, which got 3.7 per cent of the vote, down from 4.8 per cent in January, and 10 seats.
The second largest party is the centre-right New Democracy, which received 28.1 per cent of the vote, slightly up from the 27.8 per cent it got in January, and 75 seats.
The next largest party, and this is obviously very worrying, is the far right Golden Dawn, which got seven per cent of the vote, an increase from the 6.3 per cent it got in January, and 18 seats.
The centre-left Pasok, which was once one of the two dominant parties in the Greek political system, increased its share of the vote to 6.3 per cent from 5.2 per cent, and got 17 seats. The Communist Party more or less retained its level of support with 5.6 per cent of the vote (from 5.5 per cent) and got 15 seats. The centrist Potami party saw its share of the vote decrease to 4.1 per cent from 6.1 per cent, and got 11 seats.
Another centrist party, however, the Union of Centrists, witnessed a surge in support with 3.4 per cent compared to 1.8 per cent in January, and was allocated nine seats. This represents the first time that this party cleared the three per cent threshold for representation in Parliament.
Significantly, however, the left-wing Popular Unity party, which splintered off from Syriza as a result of its opposition to the latest bailout package, received only 2.9 per cent of the vote, and was not entitled to any parliamentary representation.
The failure of Popular Unity to make significant inroads in the election must have been very pleasing to Mr Tsipras who obviously felt threatened by this new political movement which included a number of his former MPs and ministers. His gamble to resign and call another election, therefore, certainly paid off.
Now of course, Mr Tsipras has the difficult task of implementing the reform programme and austerity measures he agreed to with Brussels and Greece’s other creditors. He has a clear mandate from the Greek people, so this should make his task somewhat easier, and the Syriza dissidents are not represented in Parliament, but he will nevertheless still encounter difficulties when he attempts to radically restructure the Greek economy, tackle the country’s system of clientelism and those sectors of Greek society who have enjoyed special privileges for far too long such as the country’s oligarchs.
However, the first review of just how the Greek government is fulfilling its obligations under the third bailout agreement, worth €86 billion, starts later this month.
If this progresses well, some debt relief will follow, which everybody agrees, is badly needed. The bailout package includes pension reform, the abolition of tax breaks for certain large businesses, labour reform and as number of privatisations.
Mr Tsipras also has to work very hard at keeping his coalition together; Syriza and the right-wing Independent Greeks are odd bedfellows who simply were both opposed to the austerity measures introduced by the previous Greek governments. Hours after being sworn in as Deputy Infrastructure and Transport Minister, for example, Independent Greeks MP Dimitris Kammenos had to resign his ministerial post after allegations – which he denied – that he posted anti-Semitic and homophobic comments online.
Mr Tsipras does not have an easy task ahead of him but he now has a unique opportunity to change Greece for the better and radically restructure the Greek economy. His first stint in office was largely a waste of time – to a great extent because of his then finance minister Yanis Varoufakis – who was a huge obstacle to finding common ground with the EU.
With his new mandate and the Syriza rebels out if the way, Mr Tsipras has the chance to show he is different to Greece’s past leaders and to tackle the country’s deep-rooted structural problems.
The fact that he is on the left of the political spectrum should not be a hurdle; stranger things have happened in politics.
If Mr Tsipras procrastinates, however, and just pays lip service to reform, I believe the EU will finally give up on Greece, leading to a Grexit, which is certainly a very bad outcome for everyone.
