My Thoughts On The Upcoming Greek Elections

This Sunday, the people of Greece will go to the polls to vote in a pivotal election- one that will shape the future for both itself and the rest of Europe. Leading the polls is the radical left-wing coalition, Syriza, led by Alexis Tsipras. Tsipras has positioned himself as a ‘leader’ of a wider European revolution, challenging the orthodox narrative of austerity voiced by EU officials and the International Monetary Fund. As such, he has both been criticised by the mainstream media as a populist, as well as praised by a wide range of people from the intellectual left, including the philosopher Slavoj Zizek. Syriza therefore has succeeded in representing both a new vision for Greece, as well as of the Europe itself.

Syriza’s main contender, the New Democratic Party, naturally claims that any change of direction from austerity would bring bankruptcy, tyranny and chaos. While Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF is inclined to agree with such a narrative, she fails to acknowledge the underlying structural problems within the Eurozone, opting instead to blame a ‘small component’ within the machine, needing repair through economic engineering. Yet, as the journalist Matthaios Tsimitakis rightly acknowledges, despite Greece’s adherence to the bailout conditions set by both the EU and the IMF, it has found itself on the periphery of a failing European economy, alongside others who have experienced the same economic fate. Meanwhile, rather than acknowledging the failed strategy, austerity advocates have opted to label such nations as defects, in urgent need of replacement to sustain the system itself. Certainly, this election represents the future of this system; If Syriza repeals austerity measures, as well as the bail-out agreement as it has promised, it will send a profound message that the orthodox belief in austerity is a defunct ideology, and a failed conception in practice, challenging the very structure of the system itself.

Yet, Tsipras’s vision should not simply be framed simply in terms of economics, as has been the case with many media reports in both Britain and the United States. Indeed, he has said in numerous interviews that he does not intend for Greece simply to go back to it’s pre-crisis state of existence. Rather, the rapid ascendance of his movement reflects a turbulent consciousness in Greece, against the socio-economic experiments imposed on it by both a corrupted ruling establishment, and the technocrats that succeeded it, both of which substantially undermined it’s democratic principles. In the London Review of Books, Zizek rightly notes how the mainstream media has presented Greece as simultaneously lazy peoples, leeching from the prosperity of German Capitalism, as well as helpless, vulnerable victims, that fiscal bureaucrats must rescue from themselves.  If anything, Tsipras’s movement will serve to revive democracy within Greece, and with it, restore her dignity.

Addressing a rally on Thursday, Tsipras proclaimed, “On Sunday, the old world will die”. If Syriza win the election on Sunday, they will find themselves facing a more difficult choice than their predecessors- either to succumb to the pressure of overbearing fiscal institutions, or to lay the foundations of a new Greece- one free from the shackles of a technocratic system that has sapped both its strength and its humanity.