Alekos Alavanos

 SYRIZA- The rise and fall of the cult left-wing party in Europe - Reflections on the right wing

When Alexis Tsipras took over SYRIZA in 2008 - thanks mainly to Alekos Alavanos - the Synaspismos party had shed the permanent angst of the progressive left about whether it would make the 3% cut to enter Parliament, even though the rate of 5% in the 2007 elections was not very promising, not to mention the drop to 4.6% in 2009. 

From the very start of his political career PM Alexis Tsipras was constantly gaining ground.

Until SYRIZA's defeat on 26 May, he always scored victories, small or large.

As a very young candidate in the Athens mayoral race on the "Open Athens" ticket, he garnered over ten percent of the vote, more than double what his party was polling in national elections.

Panagiotis Lafazanis, a former minister and SYRIZA defector who last year launched a party called Popular Unity, has joined forces with Alekos Alavanos, one-time mentor of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who leads another small party, Plan B, which supports Greece's return to the drachma.

The battle to save economically-shackled Greece has left the halls of Brussels as controversial reforms are brought to Greek Parliament. Bleary-eyed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with a selection of SYRIZA deputies on Monday night to come up with a plan to sway radical left coalition (SYRIZA) MPs to accept the most draconian measures imposed on a sovereign nation since World War II.

A long-planned scheme for the pedestrianization of Panepistimiou Street in central Athens appeared to have been finally scuppered on Friday after the Council of State upheld an appeal by the former head of the Technical Chamber of Greece, Ioannis Alavanos, and another 55 citizens expressing concerns about its potential environmental impact.