All of 2015 was an odd year in Greece, politically speaking - in the very middle of an odd seven-year (gl)itch that started in early summer 2012 and ended last Sunday.
Early May 2012 was when a bunch of anti-establishment parties gained one third of Greece's popular vote. Left-wing Syriza, a radical evolution of a Euro-communist group formed after USSR's Czechoslovakia invasion, started to take over the bulk of former socialist (Pasok) voters. Nationalist Independent Greeks (a splinter from conservative New Democracy) exceeded 10% and the neo-nazi Golden Dawn entered parliament too, with 7%. This sum subsequently grew to nearly 50% and, during the 2015 referendum, formed the core of the 61% anti-bailout result.
The referendum proved useless - as ex PM Tsipras now admits, it served basically as a "moment of freedom" before the hard realities sank in. During the same evening, finance minister Varoufakis resigned as he realized that Tsipras had decided to strike a deal with the lending institutions. The day after, Greek President Pavlopoulos held a meeting of all party leaders save for Golden Dawn. There are no minutes taken from that long conversation but the results were soon obvious.
The defeated opposition parties of New Democracy and Pasok supported Tsipras and more than counterbalanced his parliamentary losses, passing the new package through parliament. Tsipras' gamble paid off as, in September 2015, he called an early election, which he won with a virtually unchanged percentage. As the Independent Greeks reentered parliament, the result of January 2015 was replicated, meaning Tsipras got an easy 4-year extension as PM.
What had changed since January is that he no longer had to live up to any promises. The election was not won on any platform, as neither government nor opposition had any. The third bailout package had defined policy and each new tranche typically meant additional corrective measures. The opposition stopped supporting the government in parliament as Tsipras was passing one after another unpopular measure, including the deal on "North Macedonia".
What did change for the opposition was the election - after six months of interim leadership - of a new leader. Ever since Kyriakos Mitsotakis, son of a former PM and statesman, came as an outsider to finally win the two-round contest, he took the lead in opinion polls. From anecdotal information I can confirm that centrists and socialists without New Democracy ties very openly supported Mitsotakis from day one.
Conveniently for both sides, there were no elections planned before May 2019. The poll margin for New Democracy remained more or less unchanged, with both parties gaining in popularity and causing attrition to Pasok and the other centrist group called Potami. Although -typically for Greece- the four years were hardly dull, there seems to have been no single event that catapulted Mitsotakis or caused Tsipras to collapse.
There were clear benefits for Greece in passing certain bailout-related measures (privatizations primarily) without street protests. At the same time, the economy did not rebound (there was recession in Tsipras' first two years and only mild growth from 2017), investments did not exactly fly and taxation / social security burdens became worse, if anything. Unemployment fortunately fell, partly through public-sector employment and with clear tendencies of the Tsipras government to promote labor-intensiveness and favoritism. However, the brain drain continued and those left behind depended largely on the support of extended households and pensions.
People found easily reasons to express their anger - and two strong ones appeared during 2018. The deal with (NATO-EU on) Skopje was criticized not just by maximalist nationalists but also by moderates (including Mitsotakis) who additionally hammered the lack of internal public dialogue in Greece and the perceived absence of additional material benefits for Greece. Also importantly, the fire east of Athens that killed over 100 people was outrageous not just per se (although a similar disaster had happened near Olympia in 2007 and Greece's public emergency response services proved incapable once again) but also in terms of communication handling. Although Tsipras cut short a visit to Mostar, Bosnia, on arrival he joined an on-camera emergency meeting where no reference was made to the large number of dead already known (as it turned out) to the authorities. Greater Athens (Attica) prefect Dourou, a Syriza party-mate of Tsipras and till then assumed to be his no. 2, was widely criticized for poor coordination of emergency response and has since then been indicted for negligence that caused multiple deaths.
The defeats for Dourou (in regional elections in May) and for the whole anti-bailout political trio (in May's European and then July's national election) were clear. The Independent Greeks have disappeared (their voters now apparently supporting a new, small and even more eccentric pro-Russian party), Golden Dawn failed to enter the national parliament (but did elect one MEP) and Syriza clearly trailed New Democracy -everywhere but on Crete- and are now out of power.
Tsipras seems to have been the last one-use government in those 7+ years. Papademos in 2011 and Samaras between 2012-2014 also took office under bailout terms. Mitsotakis carries a name causing strong negative feelings among the bulk of onetime '80s Pasoki who now largely support Syriza - but seems to have won over a portion of the electorate that rarely vote for ND. The pro-European alliance formed by necessity under Papademos and Samaras was forged with emotional participation during the pre-referendum hot months. Much of this alliance gave Mitsotakis his surprising 40% share of the vote, a percentage that ND hadn't seen since 2007. Despite party history, Tsipras' gross mismanagement of the crisis in early 2015 (causing a third bailout that would have been largely avoidable otherwise) has helped Mitsotakis to be perceived differently: Not as a leader of the party that contributed to the crisis (smartly, he had often differentiated himself from ND's party line of voting) but as the one that can lead Greece's path out of the oddity - and back to normality.
To a normality that is, anyway, limited by continuing debt repayment commitments and "enhanced surveillance reports". But that can still express itself in many ways, if there is a will.
[Statistical addendum: Part of the returning normality is the comeback of less fragmented politics. The two leading parties have over 70% of the vote - the last time this happened was 2009. At the same time, the political center has become again the main playing field - the main part of the spectrum where votes swing. New Democracy gained almost 12 percentage points since the last time - almost two thirds of that came from the center and left. And Syriza's net loss of 4 points was also primarily to its right.]
Early May 2012 was when a bunch of anti-establishment parties gained one third of Greece's popular vote. Left-wing Syriza, a radical evolution of a Euro-communist group formed after USSR's Czechoslovakia invasion, started to take over the bulk of former socialist (Pasok) voters. Nationalist Independent Greeks (a splinter from conservative New Democracy) exceeded 10% and the neo-nazi Golden Dawn entered parliament too, with 7%. This sum subsequently grew to nearly 50% and, during the 2015 referendum, formed the core of the 61% anti-bailout result.
The referendum proved useless - as ex PM Tsipras now admits, it served basically as a "moment of freedom" before the hard realities sank in. During the same evening, finance minister Varoufakis resigned as he realized that Tsipras had decided to strike a deal with the lending institutions. The day after, Greek President Pavlopoulos held a meeting of all party leaders save for Golden Dawn. There are no minutes taken from that long conversation but the results were soon obvious.
The defeated opposition parties of New Democracy and Pasok supported Tsipras and more than counterbalanced his parliamentary losses, passing the new package through parliament. Tsipras' gamble paid off as, in September 2015, he called an early election, which he won with a virtually unchanged percentage. As the Independent Greeks reentered parliament, the result of January 2015 was replicated, meaning Tsipras got an easy 4-year extension as PM.
What had changed since January is that he no longer had to live up to any promises. The election was not won on any platform, as neither government nor opposition had any. The third bailout package had defined policy and each new tranche typically meant additional corrective measures. The opposition stopped supporting the government in parliament as Tsipras was passing one after another unpopular measure, including the deal on "North Macedonia".
What did change for the opposition was the election - after six months of interim leadership - of a new leader. Ever since Kyriakos Mitsotakis, son of a former PM and statesman, came as an outsider to finally win the two-round contest, he took the lead in opinion polls. From anecdotal information I can confirm that centrists and socialists without New Democracy ties very openly supported Mitsotakis from day one.
Conveniently for both sides, there were no elections planned before May 2019. The poll margin for New Democracy remained more or less unchanged, with both parties gaining in popularity and causing attrition to Pasok and the other centrist group called Potami. Although -typically for Greece- the four years were hardly dull, there seems to have been no single event that catapulted Mitsotakis or caused Tsipras to collapse.
There were clear benefits for Greece in passing certain bailout-related measures (privatizations primarily) without street protests. At the same time, the economy did not rebound (there was recession in Tsipras' first two years and only mild growth from 2017), investments did not exactly fly and taxation / social security burdens became worse, if anything. Unemployment fortunately fell, partly through public-sector employment and with clear tendencies of the Tsipras government to promote labor-intensiveness and favoritism. However, the brain drain continued and those left behind depended largely on the support of extended households and pensions.
People found easily reasons to express their anger - and two strong ones appeared during 2018. The deal with (NATO-EU on) Skopje was criticized not just by maximalist nationalists but also by moderates (including Mitsotakis) who additionally hammered the lack of internal public dialogue in Greece and the perceived absence of additional material benefits for Greece. Also importantly, the fire east of Athens that killed over 100 people was outrageous not just per se (although a similar disaster had happened near Olympia in 2007 and Greece's public emergency response services proved incapable once again) but also in terms of communication handling. Although Tsipras cut short a visit to Mostar, Bosnia, on arrival he joined an on-camera emergency meeting where no reference was made to the large number of dead already known (as it turned out) to the authorities. Greater Athens (Attica) prefect Dourou, a Syriza party-mate of Tsipras and till then assumed to be his no. 2, was widely criticized for poor coordination of emergency response and has since then been indicted for negligence that caused multiple deaths.
The defeats for Dourou (in regional elections in May) and for the whole anti-bailout political trio (in May's European and then July's national election) were clear. The Independent Greeks have disappeared (their voters now apparently supporting a new, small and even more eccentric pro-Russian party), Golden Dawn failed to enter the national parliament (but did elect one MEP) and Syriza clearly trailed New Democracy -everywhere but on Crete- and are now out of power.
Tsipras seems to have been the last one-use government in those 7+ years. Papademos in 2011 and Samaras between 2012-2014 also took office under bailout terms. Mitsotakis carries a name causing strong negative feelings among the bulk of onetime '80s Pasoki who now largely support Syriza - but seems to have won over a portion of the electorate that rarely vote for ND. The pro-European alliance formed by necessity under Papademos and Samaras was forged with emotional participation during the pre-referendum hot months. Much of this alliance gave Mitsotakis his surprising 40% share of the vote, a percentage that ND hadn't seen since 2007. Despite party history, Tsipras' gross mismanagement of the crisis in early 2015 (causing a third bailout that would have been largely avoidable otherwise) has helped Mitsotakis to be perceived differently: Not as a leader of the party that contributed to the crisis (smartly, he had often differentiated himself from ND's party line of voting) but as the one that can lead Greece's path out of the oddity - and back to normality.
To a normality that is, anyway, limited by continuing debt repayment commitments and "enhanced surveillance reports". But that can still express itself in many ways, if there is a will.
[Statistical addendum: Part of the returning normality is the comeback of less fragmented politics. The two leading parties have over 70% of the vote - the last time this happened was 2009. At the same time, the political center has become again the main playing field - the main part of the spectrum where votes swing. New Democracy gained almost 12 percentage points since the last time - almost two thirds of that came from the center and left. And Syriza's net loss of 4 points was also primarily to its right.]
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