Greece’s leftwing leader Alexis Tsipras has emerged triumphant from a snap general election after securing a dramatic victory over his conservative rival, despite a turbulent first term in office.
There had been predictions that the race was too close to call after he accepted a crushing eurozone-led austerity programme during his first term in office, but the charismatic leader looked set to be returned to power with a near repeat of the stunning win that catapulted his Syriza party into office in January.
With 99.5% of votes counted, Syriza had claimed 35.5% of the vote, easily seeing off the main conservative challengers New Democracy on 28.1%.
The interior ministry said that gave Syriza 145 seats in the 300-seat parliament, just four fewer than when Tsipras first stormed to power early this year.
Speaking in Athens, Tsipras declared: “This victory belongs to the people and those who dream of a better tomorrow and we’ll achieve it with hard work.”
Jubilant supporters, clearly relieved at the result, took to the streets in celebration, with many singing and dancing outside Syriza’s main election marquee in central Athens.
Tsipras told supporters that he would tackle endemic corruption in the country. “The mandate that the Greek people have given is is a crystal clear mandate to get rid of the regime of corruption and vested issues,” he said. “We will show how effective we will be. We will make Greece a stronger place for the weak and vulnerable, a fairer place.”
Syriza officials said that although the party had not gained an outright majority, they would immediately set about forming a stable government, with a view to keeping the crisis-plagued country, bailed out for a third time this summer, on track with its European lenders.
The small anti-austerity right-wing Independent Greeks party, the leftists former coalition party, was prepared to enter a power-sharing arrangement with Syriza, said its leader, Panos Kammenos, joining Tsipras on stage as both men celebrated.
As the scale of the victory became clear, the conservative leader, Vangelis Meimarakis conceded defeat. “The election result, it seems, shows that the first party is Syriza and Tsipras. I congratulate him.”
Tsipras fought an uphill battle following his spectacular U-turn on previous promises to tear up the excoriating bailout agreements successive Greek governments had signed with international creditors.
The 41-year-old leader went to the polls in January promising to roll back austerity measures imposed by the so-called troika of international lenders – the European commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank – but was instead forced to accept even harsher terms in July after Greece teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and a eurozone exit. As part of the €86bn (£63bn) bailout deal, Tsipras agreed to significant pension reforms, tax rises and a major privatisation programme.
Tsipras resigned from his post as prime minister in August after his decision to sign the controversial, EU-backed bailout drove a wedge through Syriza.
In a four-week campaign, noticeable for its lacklustre feel in the wake of the draining bailout saga, almost every poll depicted a neck-and-neck race between the two main parties.
Syriza hardliners appalled by the party’s acceptance of austerity policies had broken ranks last month to form their own anti-eurozone front, Popular Unity. Tsipras was then forced to declare the need for a fresh mandate to further consolidate his power and implement the bailout package.
“The Greek people clearly wanted Alexis Tsipras, they had confidence in Alexis Tsipras and we have a clear, four-year mandate ahead of us,” said the Syriza MP Vangelis Apostolou.
French president François Hollande, a key ally of the Greek government during the summer’s fraught bailout negotiations, was quick to congratulate Tsipras and predict that Greece could enjoy a period of welcome stability.
“This is an important outcome for Greece, which will now live through a stabilisation period with a solid majority,” he said. “It is an important success for Europe, which must listen to the Greeks’ message.”
The European parliament president, Martin Schulz, tweeted his congratulations, along with a warning that Tsipras cannot row back on the country’s bailout commitments.
EU officials reacted to the news with thinly disguised comfort. Tsipras, for so long the bad boy of European politics, had only reluctantly accepted the excoriating conditions attached to the financial assistance programme.
Before what is expected to be an explosive winter, EU sources said it was better the leftist was in government, applying policies, than potentially rabble rousing on the streets. “There is a certain amount of relief in that,” said one EU insider.
The victory was all the more extraordinary given the tumult of Tsipras’s first term in office, a short tenure that became increasingly fraught as negotiations with creditors became ever more acrimonious.
A referendum on the creditors’ austerity demands added to the turmoil, which ultimately culminated with the closure of banks and imposition of capital controls. In the nearly two months since the restrictions were enforced, the economy has nosedived, with foreign trade coming to a standstill.
Commentators added that the significant abstention rate - as much as 49% of the electorate - helped Syriza. Sunday’s ballot was the third vote in less than nine months for a population evidently worn down by their country’s ongoing economic and political uncertainty.
Young Greeks in particular questioned the point of voting for a government that had reduced its room for political manoeuvre with the stringent bailout deal. But analysts said it was also clear that Syriza supporters had rallied to ensure that the left did not become a footnote in history.
Tsipras’s win in January marked the first time the radical left assumed governance in a country where the communist party was banned in the aftermath of the brutal 1946-49 civil war.
“It is a tremendous victory for him personally given that his party split and so many MPs left to form their own group after he put his signature to the third bailout agreement,” said the political commentator Aristides Hatzis. “And it is also extraordinary given that his first time was so spectacularly unsuccessful.”
Dissidents in Syriza who remained opposed to the stringent conditions of the EU-backed financial assistance programme should draw lessons from the result, said Hatzis. “What this says is that everyone now will have to toe the party line.”
The anti-austerity Popular Unity, formed by the rebels in July, failed to cross the 3% threshold to enter parliament.
The neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, which came in third with a 7.1% share, claimed it was a “party on the ascent, a party of governance, a party of power.”
(The Guardian)
