Goodbye to austerity in Greece

Syriza wins in Greece

Says the Journal,

“Today the Greek people have written history,” Syriza’s young leader and likely new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, said in his victory speech late Sunday. 

“The Greek people have given a clear, indisputable mandate for Greece to leave behind austerity.”

Greek stocks fell by more than 3.5% on Monday but wider market reaction to the result was largely muted. 

The euro traded slightly higher against the dollar in early European trading.

A Syriza victory marks an astonishing upset of Europe’s political order, which decades ago settled into an orthodox centrism while many in Syriza describe themselves as Marxists. 

The Greeks have not become a nation of reds.

The establishment parties have totally refused to align with popular opposition to austerity.

They left voters no alternative.

This is not a mandate for communism or an endorsement of Marxism.

It is, however, a mandate to end austerity and even repudiate, if necessary, half of Greece's external debt.

It emboldens the challenges of other radical parties, from the right-wing National Front in France to the newly formed left-wing Podemos party in Spain, and it sets Greece on a collision course with Germany and its other eurozone rescuers.

The Guardian this morning

Historic win

Voters handed power to Alexis Tsipras, the charismatic 40-year-old former communist who leads the umbrella coalition of assorted leftists known as Syriza. 

He cruised to an eight-point victory over the incumbent centre-right New Democracy party, according to exit polls and projections after 99% of votes had been counted.

The result surpassed pollster predictions and marginalised the two mainstream parties that have run the country since the military junta’s fall in 1974. 

What happens in a democracy to establishment parties that refuse to listen.

The result throws into question whether Greece will remain in the eurozone and the union overall, sets a precedent for anti-austerity insurgents elsewhere in Europe – notably in Spain, which will hold elections this year – and underlines public rejection of the policies prescribed mainly if not exclusively by Berlin in recent years.

. . . . . . 

When the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande, British prime minister David Cameron et al assemble for an EU summit in Brussels in just over a fortnight, they will be joined at Europe’s top table by Tsipras, probably the only man there not wearing a tie. 

The symbolism will be enormous. 

Europe’s anti-mainstream mavericks and populists are no longer just hammering on the doors.