Tsipras: back to future
A rebellion within his own party lead Alex Tsipras, now returned to the office of Prime Minister, to call the election. Some members of Syriza broke away to form their own party but did not win any seats. Meanwhile Tsipras, 41, gained a victory he hailed as a mandate for the future.
“Under difficult conditions, the Greek people have given us a clear order to get rid of everything that kept us stuck in the past,” he told supporters in Athens. “It’s a great victory, a clear victory, and a victory of the people.”
With 99.44 per cent of votes having been counted, Syriza won 35.5 per cent of the vote. That translated into 145 seats out of 300. The left-wing party will form a coalition government with the right-wing nationalist Independent Greeks party (ANEL) led by Panos Kammenos, which won 10 seats. The two will have a slim but clear majority.
Eight parties won seats with another 12 failing to gain a single seat. The main opposition, the centrist New Democracy (ND) party, took 28.1 percent of the popular vote but just 75 seats, down one from the January parliament. Syriza was down four seats but that is considered a low number given the platform they ran on and the party rebellion that lead to the election.
Tsipras said “Syriza proved it is too strong to die” and promised he would lead Greece to a new age of greater prosperity. He won in January elections on a mandate to avoid austerity, and this time he won promising to use austerity to lead Greece to a better future.
Greece: deal with creditors
While he has not endorsed the kind of economic policies the deal he agreed to in July with his counterparts in the European Union — led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel — calls for, in the campaign he said it was the only way for Greece to get out from a massive debt of $95 billion U.S.
The deal agreed to in July has what some analysts called unpalatable pension reforms along with increased sales taxes, Greece must also allow for greater competition in industry and change labour laws in such a way that are favourable to business.
Privatization of the state’s power company and putting 50 billion Euro worth of state-owned companies, along with other assets, into a fund to help pay off debt is also part of the deal; that is also intended to stimulate the economy and generate new taxes.
At the time Tsipras signed the deal he said that Greece had little choice but to agree to it. “We had a very specific choice,” he told the Greek parliament in July. “A deal we largely disagreed with, or a chaotic default.”
His latest election victory means that Greece can now move forward with the deal that their government “largely disagreed with.”
