SYRIZA feeling the pain

By Costas Iordanidis

SYRIZA is feeling the pain of its transformation from a revolutionary party to a systemic one and, what?s more, to a party of the European mainstream, and this is a problem that the party chief, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, will have to manage. It was Tsipras who elevated the people?s expectations to such lofty levels; its was Tsipras who oversaw the process that led to a ?compromise? in Brussels; finally, it was Tsipras who tried to change the way that Europe acts toward our bankrupt country ? with little success.

SYRIZA?s biggest advantage over the mainstream Greek parties is that the left is extremely durable when it comes to discussions and analyses. Yesterday?s meeting of the parliamentary group lasted more than 10 hours, with Tsipras having to explain himself the entire time. The difference with his predecessor, conservative Premier Antonis Samaras, was that the latter would announce his decisions to his party?s MPs.

The kind of language of compromise that is coming from Brussels is peculiar, but it is thanks to the fact that it is vague and incomprehensible ? to the layman ? that a convergence of sorts has been reached between Athens and the eurozone, which has allowed all parties to save face and for everyone to seem like a winner in their respective countries.

On the surface it appears that the new agreement is aimed at enforcing certain terms of the memorandum that have fallen to the wayside over the past five years. Cracking down on tax evasion and clamping down on corruption and vested interests are measures our creditors had demanded from the start that were never enforced.

Under pressure to secure financing, the coalition government of SYRIZA and Independent Greeks has only one option: to...