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Syriza forms government with rightwing Independent Greeks party Syriza forms government with rightwing Independent Greeks party
(about 1 hour later)
Greece is headed into a new era of anti-austerity as the radical leftist Syriza successfully formed a government with the Independent Greeks party after falling agonisingly short of an outright majority in Sunday’s landmark elections. A new chapter in Greece’s uphill struggle to remain solvent – and in the eurozone – has begun in earnest as anti-austerity politicians assumed the helm of government following the radical left Syriza party’s spectacular electoral victory on Sunday night.
“I want to say, simply, that from this moment, there is a government,” the Independent Greeks leader, Panos Kammenos, told reporters after emerging from a meeting at Syriza’s headquarters. Ushering in the new era, Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister-designate, announced that he would not be sworn in, as tradition dictates, in the presence of Archbishop Iernonymos but would instead take the oath of office in a civil ceremony. At 40, he becomes the country’s youngest premier in modern times.
The leftist, who surprised Greeks by speedily agreeing to share power with the populist rightwing Independent Greeks party, Anel, is expected to be handed a mandate by president Karolos Papoulias to form a government later on Monday. Earlier, Panos Kammenos, Anel’s rumbustious leader, emerged from talks with Tsipras lasting an hour saying the two politicians had successfully formed a coalition.
“I want to say, simply, that from this moment, there is a government,” Kammenos told reporters gathered outside Syriza’s headquarters.
“The Independent Greeks party will give a vote of confidence to the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. The prime minister will go to the president and … the cabinet makeup will be announced by the prime minister. The aim for all Greeks is to embark on a new day, with full sovereignty.”“The Independent Greeks party will give a vote of confidence to the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. The prime minister will go to the president and … the cabinet makeup will be announced by the prime minister. The aim for all Greeks is to embark on a new day, with full sovereignty.”
The small, populist, rightwing Independent Greeks agree with Syriza on the need to cancel austerity, but disagree on many key social issues such as immigration, and it had been expected that coalition negotiations would be difficult. In the end they lasted less than an hour. With 36.3 % of the vote, Syriza fell two seats short of the 151 MPs it needed to govern alone. The Independent Greeks, who have huge ideological differences with the leftists but are bonded by the desire to end biting EU-IMF-mandated cutbacks, won 4.75% of the vote and 13 seats. The conservative New Democracy party – the dominant force in a coalition lead by the outgoing prime minister Antonis Samaras – suffered ignominious defeat, collapsing to 76 seats in the 300-seat parliament.
Syriza just missed out on the 151 MPs it needed to govern alone, winning 149 seats on a 36.3% share of the vote. Independent Greeks won 13 seats. The incumbent centre-right New Democracy party of the outgoing prime minister, Antonis Samaras, were routed, collapsing to 76 seats in the 300-seat parliament. Syriza’s victory could encourage other radical anti-austerity parties in southern Europe, including Spain’s Podemos, whose leader, Pablo Iglesias, told a rally in Valencia: “Hope is coming, fear is fleeing. Syriza, Podemos, we will win.”
The extreme-right, Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, several of whose MPs are currently in jail awaiting trial on charges of extortion, weapons possession and operating anti-immigrant hit squads, ended up as the country’s third largest party with 6.28% of the vote and 17 seats. After five years of austerity-fuelled recession that has driven the vast majority of Greeks into poverty and despair, Syriza cadres described the new administration as a “national salvation government”.
Tsipras, 40, is set to become Greece’s youngest prime minister. He will head the eurozone’s first government to openly oppose the draconian bailout conditions imposed by the European Union and International Monetary Fund, and also wants a write-off of at least half Greece’s mammoth €318bn (£238bn) debt mountain. The veteran leftist Dimitris Vitsas, who sits on Syriza’s political secretariat, said now that the “people have spoken” the government would move quickly to tackle the devastating effects of austerity. “Our immediate and most pressing priority is to alleviate the humanitarian crisis,” he said in an interview on SKAI TV. “The Greek people have spoken, they have cancelled the policies of the memorandum,” he said referring to the deeply unpopular bailout accords debt-crippled Athens has signed with creditors.
The landmark election result, the first time since the 1970s that neither the centre-left Pasok nor the conservative New Democracy have been returned to power, could set Athens on course for an imminent collision with international lenders, EU institutions and with Berlin, where the chancellor, Angela Merkel, has so far steadfastly refused to let up on demands for draconian belt-tightening and structural reforms by the bloc’s weaker economies. With more than 26% of the population out of work, and more than a third at risk of poverty, the new government was assuming the reins not only of a broke state but a broken society.
Syriza’s financial planning official, Giorgos Stathakis, said the new government had no plans to meet with negotiators from the “troika” of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, and would instead seek talks directly with governments. “And yet despite all this talks of economic catastrophe, [with the advent to power of a leftwing government] “we have woken up to a sunny day,” Vitsas said. “The banks haven’t closed, they are operating normally, schools are open. Everything is just as it should be.”
Hours after Syriza’s victory, ECB executive board member Benoit Coeure said Greece had to pay its debts and warned Tsipras to play by the “European rules of the game”. But Tsipras faces a formidable task, and within hours of his victory, foreign and European officials pressed home the point that there would be little wiggle room – and not much of a grace period – for the new government.
“There is no room for unilateral action in Europe that doesn’t exclude a discussion, for example, on the rescheduling of this debt,” Coeure told Europe 1 radio. The leftists say full economic recovery can only come if Athens’ bailout agreements are rewritten and the country’s monumental debt pile – totalling €318bn (£238bn) – is reduced.
Europe’s finance ministers were scheduled to meet on Monday for their first chance to discuss Syriza’s sweeping victory. The euro briefly sank to an 11-year low against the dollar and stock markets fell amid fears that Greece’s massive €240bn bailout could be in doubt and the battered country may be forced out of the eurozone. Yanis Varoufakis, the internationally renowned economist, newly installed as a Syriza MP and tipped to become the finance minister, likened the Greek economy to a “poisoned chalice”.
“Greece leaves behind catastrophic austerity, it leaves behind fear and authoritarianism, it leaves behind five years of humiliation and suffering,” Tsipras told thousands of cheering, flag-waving supporters gathered in Klafthmonos Square in central Athens on Sunday night. “Fiscal waterboarding has turned us into a debt colony,” he told the BBC.
Tsipras, born into a middle-class Athens family and trained as a civil engineer, reiterated his intention to renegotiate the bailout terms, but hinted that he may not quite be as forceful in government as during his campaign, when he pledged to light an “anti-austerity blaze” across Europe. Before Sunday’s election, Varoufakis, who gave up his post at Texas University in Austin to run with Syriza, had described the prospect of resuming stalled talks with foreign lenders as daunting.
“The new Greek government will be ready to cooperate and negotiate for the first time with our peers a just, mutually beneficial and viable solution,” he promised. “It is an extremely scary project and prospect,” he said. If, as looks likely, the academic assumes the finance ministry portfolio, he will almost certainly head the negotiations.
Tsipras’s fierce anti-austerity, anti-bailout message has found an enthusiastic audience across a visibly strung-out and worn-down country. Since 2009, Greece’s GDP has plummeted by a quarter, its household income by more than a third, and joblessness has trebled, to 26%. Yet Greece’s partners show no signs of letting up. “There are internal eurozone rules to be respected,” IMF chief Christine Lagarde told Le Monde. “We cannot make special categories for such or such country.”
Thousands of supporters turned out to watch Tsipras speak in central Athens after his opponents conceded. “The Greek people have written history,” he said, to cheers. “Greece is leaving behind catastrophic austerity, fear and autocratic government.” Arriving in Brussels for a scheduled meeting of euro group finance ministers, Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economics and finance, told reporters that the EU expected Greece to pay back its debt. “We all want a Greece that stays on its feet, creating jobs and growth, reducing inequality, and a Greece that repays its debt.”
Outside the party’s campaign tent in central Athens, supporters hugged each other and danced in celebration. “It’s like we’ve been born again and finally feel some hope,” said Litsa Zarkada, a fired government cleaning worker. “We were thrown into the street just before we could take our pension. We have been through so much.” Germany has pledged to work with Greece’s new government, but has not given any hint that it might support a debt deal. In a press conference on Monday, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said: “The Greek voters have chosen Syriza and we have to respect that … Currently, we have a result and no government. But when we do we will offer to work together with them.”
Swingeing spending cuts and soaring unemployment have seen around 3.1 million people, or a third of the population, lose their social security and health insurance. Almost third of Greece’s population now lives below the poverty line, while 18% are unable to afford basic food needs. However, Seibert made clear that any talks would not be taking place between Germany and Greece, but between Greece and its European partners.
The party’s victory could encourage other radical anti-austerity parties in southern Europe, including Spain’s Podemos, whose leader Pablo Iglesias told a rally in Valencia: “Hope is coming, fear is fleeing. Syriza, Podemos, we will win.” Analysts in Athens warned that with the new government poised to ratchet up tensions with creditors, Greece was headed for a prolonged – and possibly fatal – period of political uncertainty. The country, which faces debt repayments of €4.3bn in the coming months, has been guaranteed bailout funds only until the end of February.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, however, said Syriza’s unexpectedly wide margin of victory would “increase economic uncertainty across Europe”, adding: “That’s why the UK must stick to our plan, delivering security at home.” The unexpectedly good showing of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party – with 6.28% of the vote the extremists emerged as the country’s third biggest political force – added to the fears. “Greece is for sure entering a new era and my great worry is that it could be very destructive,” said the prominent commentator Alexis Papahelas. “There are people in this country who know what war and occupation means but the young don’t seem to know,” he said. “My fear is that they may turn to an even more anti-systemic party, on the far right [in the event of failure]. I really don’t rule it out.”
The chancellor, George Osborne, went further, saying that Syriza’s promises will be “very difficult to deliver and incompatible with what the eurozone currently demands of its members”.