The Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) is currently leading the polls ahead of Greek parliamentary elections on 25 January. Theofanis Exadaktylos writes on the development of the party and what a Syriza victory might mean for the rest of Europe. He argues that Syriza has significantly moderated its position since the last Greek elections in 2012 and that the party is unlikely to be able to implement the more radical elements of its proposed programme even if it wins a majority in Sunday’s vote

Exadaktylos, Theofanis

LSE Research Online

21/01/2015Syriza is now a mainstream party and there is little for Europe tofear in its electoral successblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/01/21/syriza-is-now-a-mainstream-party-and-there-is-little-for-european-governments-to-fear-in-its-electoral-success/The Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) is currently leading the polls ahead of Greek parliamentaryelections on 25 January. Theofanis Exadaktylos writes on the development of the party and what aSyriza victory might mean for the rest of Europe. He argues that Syriza has signiﬁcantly moderatedits position since the last Greek elections in 2012 and that the party is unlikely to be able toimplement the more radical elements of its proposed programme even if it wins a majority inSunday’s vote.The appearance of Alexis Tsipras at the LSE in March 2013 marked the establishment of Syriza (theCoalition of the Radical Left) as a serious challenger for government in Greece. His public lecture had a bit of theglory of a future party in government: a panel of advisors that accompanied Tsipras on his trip to London, local andinternational media and reporters and, of course, the London association of friends and members of the partyclapping and cheering for the leader on certain occasions.The message out of that lecture was that Syriza was going to bring genuine change to Greece, take it out of theausterity path and create a new promise land for the Greeks that have suﬀered through the ﬁnancial crisis in the lastfew years. However, the question stemming out of this appearance was whether Syriza will abide by the limits ofcapitalism and whether it will eventually be subsumed by power and authority – succumbing not only to thepressures imposed by the international system but most importantly to pressures coming from the depths of theGreek political system.Syriza: from protest party to the mainstream of Greek politicsWhen it ﬁrst started, the party represented the protest vote of the left. Sitting on the margins of the political system,its members, but also its voters, presented the party as an anti-systemic radical left movement that was inparliament to be a troublemaker rather than a passive observer of current aﬀairs. Prior to the advent of the Greekdebt crisis, the party received small levels of support, sitting comfortably between 3 and 5 per cent of the popularvote. Then the crisis came along.Joining forces with the Indignados of Athens and the ‘I don’t pay’ movement in the central square of the city, Syrizawent out on the streets, capturing public sentiments against the memorandum of understanding with the EU and theIMF, and of course the advent of the troika. Proclaiming that Greece was being ruled by a ‘puppet government’serving Germany’s interests, it rode the spirit of the times and protested against the surrender of authority to thetechnocrats of the EU and the IMF. Pasok, which was the governing party at the time, started to feel the pressurefrom the electorate and lose support as voters reacted to reforms and austerity measures, blaming the party for thestate of play in Greece. Aligning with other opposition parties, Syriza was at the forefront of those pressures thatcalled for the resignation of the government and the annulment of the bailout agreements in late 2011. Withmomentum behind the party growing, Syriza began to gain support in opinion polls and many of the old guard ofPasok started joining its ranks.Syriza was now drawing enthusiasts left and right (and from the centre) as the middle ground of Greek politicsstarted to crumble. The unravelling of the Greek political system and its polarisation toward the extremes of thepolitical spectrum created a new pole of attraction for the voters of the centre. This was evident in the doubleelections of 2012. Trailing just a few points behind the centre-right party of New Democracy, Syriza rose to secondplace achieving a strong presence in parliament. Refusing to cooperate in the formation of a coalition government in1/3Credit: John D. Carnessiotis (CC-BY-SA-3.0)2012, Syriza remained as the leading opposition party advocating the return to the old national currency,detachment from the European Union, the unilateral writing-oﬀ of Greece’s debt, the payment of reparations byGermany from WWII, the return of welfare beneﬁts, pensions and minimum wages to 2009 levels and thenationalisation of key industries to create conditions of self-reliance and self-suﬃciency for the ailing Greekeconomy.In light of its growing momentum, and in the eﬀort of party apparatchiks and political campaigners to groom its proﬁleto appeal to a larger number of voters, slowly, yet steadily, Syriza transformed itself from a party of the fringes to aparty of the mainstream, adopting all the required characteristics to establish it as the alternative pole in a two-partysystem. It changed its symbols, it created a unitary umbrella to host all of its diﬀerent factions, it started campaigningaround Greece in open public gatherings – all while its leader, Alexis Tsipras, was in the process of being groomedas the new Prime Minister of Greece. Still without a detailed economic and social programme, the party now struckdown its opponents using the rhetoric of change and disentanglement from the path of austerity, but made U-turns inkey areas where its proposals were deviating from the mainstream. On the back of these developments, Syrizacame ﬁrst in the Greek European Parliament Elections of May 2014.Syriza and the 2015 electionsAs we approach the elections of 25 January, Syriza isnow trying to appease the country’s Europeanpartners that it does not want to take Greece out ofthe Eurozone or the EU altogether. Instead, the partypromises to renegotiate the terms of the bailoutagreements instead of annulling them, and reducethe debt but not necessarily by causing bankruptcy orthe stalling of payments. At the same time, thisrhetoric contradicts various statements from keyparty ﬁgures who in the Greek media are still arguingthe opposite.In conversations taking place among voters in light ofthe forthcoming elections, there is almost an air ofcertainty that Syriza will be the winner (although thereis more doubt as to whether it will manage to form asingle-party government or whether it will be forcedinto a coalition). Yet, their certainty is based on three quite stereotypical statements that have come across asdefault positions: ﬁrst, that Syriza will never implement its programme and will back down on plenty of policies;second, that the EU is indeed afraid of Syriza and will make substantial compromises in light of a Greek default onits payments; and third, that the state of play in Greece is such that they have nothing to lose by trying out Syriza ingovernment.Even in the case of Syriza securing an absolute majority in Parliament, the ﬁrst statement is broadly close to thetruth. Given that the party still contains a number of similarly minded left-wing factions that have been relativelyradical or have vetoed party decisions in the past, any failure of the party to embark on its programme (due to eitherinternal or external factors) may lead to an erosion of its majority in parliament.On the other hand, day after day, the EU seems to accept that there is scope for negotiating the length of the debtrather than its size, but most European counterparts have already expressed an opinion that the Greek question isnot as signiﬁcant as in 2012. Finally, the Greek economy has started to demonstrate some small signs of recovery.The state of play is not as bad as in the beginning of the crisis in 2010, and there is not much scope for mistakes inthe ﬁrst few weeks after the election. Therefore, despite the rhetoric, the Greek electorate inherently believe that2/3Syriza will not do what it promises – in fact they trust it that it will not implement its programme in full.So is there a reason to be afraid of the big bad wolf? All signs point to “no”. Even in a deeper reading, there arestrong indicators that Syriza is no longer the protest party it used to be. It is now part of the system it once opposedand has learned to play the mainstream political game very well. Its party apparatus (enriched with experiencedpolitical advisors, campaigners and public relations professionals) works like a well-oiled machine and thesharpening of its public image reveals that there is nothing greatly radical anymore in the Coalition of Radical Left,contrary to what its name would lead us to believe.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/1L0k0dd _________________________________About the authorTheofanis Exadaktylos – University of SurreyTheofanis Exadaktylos is Lecturer in European Politics at the University of Surrey. His latestpublication can be found here. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter. His doctoralthesis was on the Europeanization of national foreign policies of the member states with particularfocus on Greece and Germany. He holds an MSc. in European Political Economy: Integration fromthe London School of Economics, and a BA in Economics and International Relations (Europe andthe former USSR) from Tufts University. He tweets @EUforeignpolicy.3/3

Syriza is now a mainstream party and there is little for Europe to fear in its electoral success

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