\n<\/p>\n
We cannot count exactly how many of the 2,245,978 (36.34%) Greeks who voted for leftist SYRIZA exactly 10 years ago (on January 25, 2015) believed in the party\u2019s \u201cThessaloniki Program,\u201d which provided for benefits and balanced budgets. They were probably not that many, as was evident from the results of the second elections in September. In those polls, the party received 1,926,526 votes.<\/p>\n
So what was this swelling of the radical-left party that led to the nightmarish first half of its governance with right-wing, populist Independent Greeks (ANEL)? Anger at the \u201cold party system\u201d played a role, but that was expressed more with the rise of the now-defunct, neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which secured 6.28% in the January elections, promising for someone \u201cto enter Parliament and beat them all up.\u201d Another popular demand could have been to fight against corruption and intertwining political and economic interests, but then again, Greeks had lived happily with corruption and intertwining interests for more than 40 years. Besides, we did not see any mass reactions when, under the pretext of licensing the major TV channels, SYRIZA and ANEL attempted to set up their own system of corruption and interests through an opaque licensing process.<\/p>\n
Most people probably saw the rise of the left as something like buying a lottery ticket, hoping to win at least one of the smaller sums. \u201cHey, even if half (or 1\/3, or 1\/4) of [what SYRIZA promised] is done, we\u2019ll still be winners,\u201d many people said at the time, depending on their level of optimism. It was also considered a sure bet because \u201cwhat worse could happen?\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus we entered the era of the so-called \u201cproud negotiation,\u201d with the arrogant former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis prancing around Europe with his shirts untucked, threatening with an economic armageddon, the then state minister Alekos Flambouraris insisting that Greece was not in danger of exiting the eurozone if it didn\u2019t repay its debts, and the then leader of ANEL, Panos Kammenos, shouting inappropriate comments in Parliament. All this while the whole world was warning us that we were heading for the cliff\u2019s edge. \u201cIt is important for everyone in the European Union that Greece fulfills its obligations, that it complies with European rules like all of us,\u201d warned Antonio Costa, the Portuguese prime minister at the time. \u201cAll Grexit needs is a few more weeks like this,\u201d the Financial Times wrote in February 2015. \u201cThere\u2019s now a 50% chance of Greece leaving\u201d the eurozone,\u201d according to the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n
Was that nightmarish six months necessary for the nation to vent its frustrations? We don\u2019t know, but the first five years of the economic crisis would have justified British Premier Winston Churchill if he had said, \u201cGreeks [instead of Americans] can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n