Adultery of the Century: Here's what the leftist party did that gave great hope to poor Greek people

In January 2015, Alexis Cipras (Alexis Tsypras) came to power as a radical left. He pledged to open up Greek oligarchy war, hold on to the EU technocratia, and fertilize the entire world's investors.

“Greece is leaving behind catastrophic authenticity, leaving behind fears and authoritarianism, leaving behind five years of humiliation and anxiety,” had promoted it on election day in 2015.

But that's it. During the next four years, Cypras desperately tried to make himself more beloved to the establiment that he once vowed to fight. He protected the old oligarchs and joined the generation of new oligarchs. He implemented the austerity measures so brutal that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schable (Schauble) accused him of uploading “to poor people”. And it gave international investors permission with big promises of small taxes and gold visas.

“Reforms are like bicycles. If you don't, you fall down. ” Cirpras told the Financial Times.

There is thought in many that Cypras ' transformation was predetermined. Among rightist analysts, it is portrayed as a by - product of radical policies that crashed with cold reality: Cypras simply emerged from the adolescence of Syriza, who maintained confrontational attitudes. Among left analysts, it was portrayed as the inevitable result of EU anti-democratic architecture: Cyprasi had no choice but simply to submit and Syriza's dreams died on arrival.

But this view dramatically underestimates Cirpras' power as prime minister and the large extent with which he willingly threw himself into the remote edge of the political spectrum.

True, the circumstances of his time as prime minister were not easy -- the European troika wanted to provide an example through Greece. And the limits of global capitalism were equally difficult: attack hard oligarchs ship owners, warning Cipras, and they would just abandon the country. We can feel empathy with many difficult decisions coming from taking on a high assignment.

But nothing justifies the expulsion of poor families from their homes. Nothing justifies auctioning many large parts of land and sea to feed large corporations, such as ExxonMobil. Nothing justifies the miserable conditions in the immigrants' camps in Greece, where there was terrible sexual violence, cutbacks <x0medocyst, medical checks, food and even water”. And nothing justifies the sale of weapons of Mohammed bin Salman, support for Benjamin Netanyah and the purchase of fighter planes by Donald Trump.

In short, Cypras not only surrendered to the troika, or not simply left his radical ideals for a stupid realism. He actively remodeled his government as a right-wing force on the world stage.

For many of Syriza's supporters, the betrayal was too serious. The results in Greece's youth -- the historic base of Syriza -- show the support of the centre-right party “New Democracy”. Of 16.5 percent of the vote in 2015, more than 30 percent voted in 2019.

In May, Cirpras made a recent desperate effort to take these voters back by offering a “stimulant package” that cut taxes and offer pension bonuss basically by stealing the rival party's programme, New Democracy. But this move only highlighted the dissonance between Syriza's populist rhetoric and its parliamentary reality. When the time came for elections at last, to vote for New Democracy at least allowed voters to choose this dysonance to feel a return to reality, no matter how rude, from the celebration in Cirpras circus for non-existence of the economy.

What lessons can we learn from Syriza's legacy?

I propose three Sosh about politics, party and politics.

The first is not to please our political opponent. A common explanation for the decline of rightist parties in the last quarter century is their inability to talk about the concerns of rightists. But Syriza showed that imitating her right does not prevent her growing up. Instead, Cypras ' flirting with militaristism and neoliberalism caused him to lose his party's basic identity, and he braved and empowered his rivals. Why support the right Syriza, ask many voters, when we can have a right for sure?

The second is the following: one should not invest the hopes of a movement in a politician figure. It's a common refrain in Greece that says that “Cipras is Syriza”: he is the only one who has political cunning to keep different factions together on Greek left. But as the pyramid that is torn down by its head, the personification of the Syriza platform made its policy too unstable, too dependent on directions that Cypras chose to be supported. Only a party that's quite depressed in a social movement where the pyramid base holds its responsible head can remain true to fundamental principles, especially in a context like that of Greece.

And the third is keeping the flames of rebellion alive. Syriza's rise in power occurred with promises to challenge in creative form the status quo. Voters realised that the chances of radical changes were small, but they trusted Cypras to fight anyway. But when the Syriza instead became the tyrant of injustice, that spirit of rebelliousness was lost, and the basis of support coughed with him. /Periscope