Syriza, the coalition of left wing parties in Greece on an anti-austerity ticket, won a massive victory in Sunday's general election.
Pundits claims were accurate as the party led by Alexis Tsipras (pictured below) won 149 seats leaving it one short of an absolute majority but with a clear mandate from Greek voters to tackle its bailout lenders and reduce austerity.
With 151 seats, the 40-year-old Tsipras would have been in a more powerful position but urgent renegotiations with Greece’s lenders will start when the dust has settled and the partying is over.
The former government of the New Democracy party came a distant second at the polls as it suffered a sharp decline in support reflecting its poor grasp and management of the Greek economy.
The neo-Nazi, Aurora Dourada, party came third with over 6% of the vote.
Tsipras has pledged to renegotiate Greece's debt arrangement with international creditors and to reverse many of the austerity measures he sees as having been forced on Greece since the first bailout in 2010.
Portugal’s Left Bloc leaders will be reviewing the Greek election result with satisfaction but whether a new set of policies and a new direction will result, depends on their leaders’ ability to take advantage of the shock that the Greek election is causing through the corridors of power in Brussels and Berlin.
The election result is reverberating in countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, where the rejection of German-inspired austerity is lending growing support to anti-austerity parties such as 'Podemos' in Spain and the 'Five Star' movement in Italy.
"What's clear is we have a historic victory that sends a message that does not only concern the Greek people, but all European peoples," said Panos Skourletis, Syriza’s spokesman. "There is great relief among all Europeans.”
Skourletis added that the election result was a rejection of 'wild austerity' and would herald 'a return of social dignity and social justice.'
The Tsipras manifesto included the reversal of the Troika imposed privatisations, pension cuts and a minimum wage reduction with a peldge to 'cooperate with creditors.'
This puts Greece on a collision course with the Troika which has the support of the Eurozone finance ministers who are expected today to fire the first warning shot that there will be no renegociations if the agreed austerity programme is varied or cancelled.
Angela Merkel is fully aware that if Greece manages to get preferential terms for its Troika loans, then Portugal will want the same and the other peoples' movements across southern Europe will gain popular support.
The problem Syriza has is that it was elected to lead on an anti-austerity programme and any wavering of this core value when negotiating with the Troika suits may cause a split within the party during the early days of government.
Conversely, by sticking to the anti-austerity pledge, the party will lead Greece into the long grass of a Grexit, or Greek Exit, a return to the Drachma and financial and moral isolation from northern Europe.
Greece owes lenders €320 billion (175% of GDP) making it the second most indebted country per capita in the world after Japan with each Greek owing around €30,000.
Alexis Tsipras
Comments
Both countries have similar recent histories in finishing (allegedly) with oligarchs and elites in the 1970's .... but not actually doing so.
How nice to hear that in Portugal - and know it was meant.
It could start to clear up this mess here !
Indeed, it is misuse of the word to say support. It has been decades of obstruction and delay until the hopeless would be entrepreneur has lost interest.
Nothing can change here in Portugal as the problem is not just at national level but intentionally kept down at a local municipal level. The bandit barons of the concelho's happy to keep their friends and families businesses running, no matter how inefficiently or ineffectively.
These people still have their jobs !!! And are still obstructing development. Indeed we now read of an intent to regionalise the political parties on the Portuguese mainland. As on the islands.
Yet another level of corruption to wade through !
Greece was never the 'only problem' for the EU - Portugal was always the 'next one' !
Yes, we need less government, and fewer bureaucrats too.
But taxing everyone to death while cutting most support and construction programs, while banks restrict lending, just vacuums the cash from an economy. Without cash, everything grinds to a halt; and then how will the debts get repaid? How will those thrifty Germans make money when no one has any to spend on their products?
Austerity is no good for anyone, it's just some semi-religious catch phrase the sounds good in certain cultures.
But it's not just money we need in peripheral Europe. If the bureaucracy keeps blocking every single project, big and small, there can be no development and no economic growth.
That could be good for the environment, but will involve huge human suffering.