Greece: Symbol of EU crisis or paradigm of Europe's salvation
By Gaither Stewart
It is an ironic twist of history that Greece, the cradle of Western culture, today, 2500 years after the acme of Hellenic glory, appears on the stage of history in the best of cases as victim, and in the worst, as the symbol of the threat to the collapse of the West European society.
SYRIZA, an acronym signifying "Coalition of the Radical Left", is favored to win upcoming re-elections following the inconclusive elections held last May 6. Today's ungovernable and crisis-ridden Greece is shaking the foundation of the European Union. The left coalition is headed by the 38-year old Alexis Tsipras, prominent since his candidacy for Mayor of Athens in 2006. Tsipras, the leader of the left's key component called SYNASPISMOS, also an umbrella group of Greece's far left, originated from the youth wing of the Greek Communist Party, the KKE.
During the ongoing political-economic crisis, Tsipras has enunciated clearly his program: Greece should remain in the Euro Zone-but under certain conditions: the unbearable austerity measures imposed on Greece by the Troika of EU, European Central Bank and the World Monetary Fund in the infamous 43-pageMemorandum of Understanding must be renegotiated and modified. He does not favor a leap into the dark of exit from Europe and the Euro; he in fact agrees with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that if Greece abandons the Euro, the next day the market will begin its search for the second victim. And the second will be Spain or Italy. "We do not want to destroy the European Union. But if we are to save Europe, then we must change directions."
SYRIZA's prominent parliamentary deputy and party Speaker in the nation's last Parliament, Theodoris Dritsas, explained in an interview with the Italian radical left newspaper, Il Manifesto, that for its survival Greece must abandon the imposed austerity measures. Dritsas is convinced that recent left electoral victories in France, Germany and Italy mark the beginning of the end of unrestrained economic liberalism in Europe.
SYRIZA is favored to win the June 17 elections. Its electoral strength today is estimated at 22-26%. However, electoral predictions are impossible in a nation where everything changes from one day to the next. In any case, the Greek elections are assuming the character of a frontal clash between the left and the ultra-liberalism that imposed the austerity measures, both conservatives and Socialists.
There are three fundamental questions: Can SYRIZA in this brief time transform itself into a viable, effective political party capable of unifying the entire left and the will of the people? How much of the vote will SYRIZA garner next month? And if it wins the elections, which political alliances will it form in order govern the nation? In any case, it seems certain that the elections will produce a powerful left bloc more unified than it has ever been. Progressives and many Greeks believe that a government with a left core will have the greatest possibility of saving Greek society.
BACKGROUND TO SYRIZA
Like most Western Communist parties after the 1970s, Greek Communists of the KKE split into two camps: a national Communist Party in line with the Eurocommunism in Italy, France and Spain, and a pro-Moscow wing. SYNASPISMOS was an electoral alliance between the two which lasted until the 1990s when the main Moscow-oriented KKE abandoned the alliance, in the process purging half its members, who remained in SYNASPISMOS together with the Eurocommunists. Tsispras was among the latter. Thus SYNASPISMOS included diverse left factions and movements: from anti-globalists to Eurocommunists, left Social Democrats, far leftists and ecologists. In the 2004 elections, the party allied with other small parties to form SYRIZA. Under Tsipras leadership the new umbrella group got a 5.6% and 14 parliamentary deputies in 2007.
Today, Greek fear of a return of the far-right, together with the incapability of the traditional PASOK and NEW DEMOCRACY to govern, the economic crisis that has the country on its knees, and Tsipras' wide popularity and pragmatism, may combine to thrust him, as a British journalist noted, into a role like that of Morales in Bolivia.
The fact remains that the prospects of a far-left, anti-NATO party at the helm of a EU member frightens the European center-right in general and its non-elected governing bodies in Brussels (and Berlin) in particular. Conservative NEW DEMOCRACY continues to try to convince voters that SYRIZA aims at leading Greece out of the Euro and the European Union. SYRIZA instead speaks of a limited program, the core of which would be a debtor-led partial default-suspension of interest payments on remaining debts and repudiation of the terms of the Troika-engineered bailouts. On the other hand, SYRIZA claims it is committed to the EU social model. Its current position would make attempts to force Greece out of the Euro seem to the Greeks an EU-German initiative.
