On Greece, Everyone's Bluffing—Including the Greeks

by Matthew Yglesias

Slate
May 14, 2012

Is a Greek departure from the eurozone imminent? The smart set in the world media seems to have decided overnight that it is, but I'm not so sure.

The key player, pictured above, is Alexis Tsipras, the 37-year-old leader of Syriza, the Coalition of the Radical Left. Greek politics has long been dominated by two main parties, the center-right New Democracy and the center-left PASOK, both of which are more patronage networks than real ideological parties. Then off on the far left was a Communist Party. That party, like many European Communist parties, split between a Moscow-dominated faction and a more independent-minded Eurocommunist tendency. Syriza is a coalition of far-left parties with the Eurocommunist faction of the old Communist party at its helm. Tsipras, at the age of 37, is obviously too young to be a cold warrior but the point is that the party's origins are outside of the Greek mainstream. Except that at the most recent elections Syriza emerged as the second-largest party—bigger than PASOK—and even a New Democracy/PASOK grand coaltion couldn't govern without Syriza participation. Syriza refused to participate, and Greece now looks to be headed to new elections in which Tsipras will do even better.

So what's his view?

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