Despite U-turns, Tsipras stands tall in Greece

Alexis Tsipras has presided over a near-death experience for the Greek financial system and performed a U-turn on resisting austerity. And yet the Prime Minister bestrides his nation’s politics, with no challenger in sight.

With his ministers openly discussing the possibility of a snap poll, Tsipras seems nearly ready to exploit his enduring popularity in Greece and further consolidate his position after seven turbulent months in office.

Tsipras’s one tangible achievement has been to seal a new bailout deal for Greece, but on terms so onerous that part of his radical left Syriza party is threatening to walk out.

Nevertheless, Greeks like a fighter and Syriza voters still admire how he fought the euro zone and IMF for a better deal, even though he lost.

Above all, they regard the handsome and charismatic 41-year-old as an untainted leader of a country with a sorry history of corruption that was close to bankruptcy for years.

“Tsipras is the most popular politician right now. He is young and fresh, and he’s never been involved in scandals,” said Ilias Tiganis, a 50-year-old kiosk owner in central Athens. “People don’t forget that previous governments and opposition brought the country to this situation.”

Any hesitation in calling an election could be risky for Tsipras, who won in January with much experience of protests and none of running a country.

Two momentous decisions under his leadership — both taken as disaster beckoned — are likely to start hurting his leftist supporters in the next few months, as if they haven’t suffered enough during five years of economic crisis.

At the end of June his government closed the banks for three weeks, imposing capital controls as Greece headed to the brink of bankruptcy while he tried to extract concessions from the creditors who refused to offer them.

While this narrowly saved the financial system from collapse, businesses are struggling with the strict curbs on cash withdrawals and payments abroad that remain. Unemployment is still at 25 per cent, and the capital controls, which are likely to remain until the banks are recapitalised later this year, could cost yet more jobs.

Then Tsipras caved in to the creditors — ditching his election promises to reverse austerity policies imposed under Greece’s first two bailouts — to avoid a banking collapse and euro exit. Instead he accepted more spending and pension cuts, tax increases and economic reforms which will soon start hurting Greeks, all to secure €86 billion in bailout loans.

Tsipras is unapologetic. “My conscience is clear,” he told parliament before it approved the bailout deal last Friday. “It is the best we could achieve under the current balance of power in Europe, under conditions of economic and financial asphyxiation imposed upon us.”

His supporters believe him. “Syriza voters think Tsipras put up a real fight in the euro zone and got the best he could,” said Thomas Gerakis, a political analyst and head of the Marc polling company. “They blame euro zone policymakers for the new austerity more than Tsipras.”

To fulfil his promises to the creditors, Tsipras needs a majority to pass the necessary legislation. But nearly a third of Syriza lawmakers have rebelled, and the bailout bill passed last Friday only with support from opposition parties, which said they wanted to save Greece from ruin.

That support is unlikely to continue. Three ministers raised the possibility on Monday that Tsipras will call a parliamentary confidence vote, probably leading to a snap election. One said Syriza would aim to achieve a majority, something it narrowly failed to secure in January.

But if he fails to move quickly, his popularity may slip. “The real test for the Tsipras government will be in a few months when people start feeling the effects of the implementation of the new measures,” said Gerakis.