5 Lessons from Syriza’s first year in power

It’s been a year since Syriza, Greece’s coalition of the radical left, came to power and put an end to more than 30 years of socialist PASOK and Conservative New Democracy rule. It’s been a long year.

In the months following the January 25 elections, intense negotiations between Syriza’s “erratic” government and the country’s “relentless” lenders dominated global media and culminated in a referendum in July, the closing of banks, capital controls, and a country with one foot out the eurozone door.

Things have been somewhat calmer since Alexis Tsipras’ party won a second round of elections in September 2015. Too calm, some might say. As more trouble brews on the horizon, Syriza’s one year anniversary is a chance to reflect back on lessons learned.

1. Timing is everything

By December 2014, Antonis Samaras’ government was already dead in the water. With presidential elections coming up, Samaras knew he simply didn’t have the 180 MPs he needed to pull it off. He had stopped implementing reforms to which previous leaders had agreed. The lenders,, in turn, knew his days were numbered. Syriza held the key to the January elections. And at this point the party had two choices: Agree to elect a new president with New Democracy with the promise of elections later in 2015, or bring Samaras down there and then. They opted for the latter.

It was a risky choice then — and in hindsight it was catastrophic. Syriza had hoped to receive support from Spain, Portugal and Italy in its negotiations with the EU and its lenders. But that support never materialized.

The Portuguese and Spanish governments, themselves proponents of austerity, did not want to give Greece any leeway, fearing backlash in their own countries, where they had imposed harsh austerity policies .

If Syriza had waited for the results of the Portuguese and Spanish elections later that the year, they would have had a far better shot at their support. An increasingly defiant Matteo Renzi might have seen an opportunity to stick it to Berlin. The threat of Brexit and the weight of the refugee crisis that escalated over the summer might have curbed Germany’s taste for risk-taking. In politics, timing is everything, and Syriza paid the price for getting it wrong.

2. Mice can’t roar

The sheer imbalance of power between the European north and south became painfully clear during the Greek debt negotiations. As Greece became increasingly isolated in its demands, it became evident that there is no democratic process through which a small country can challenge the political orthodoxy promoted by the EU’s power base. This has greater implications for the EU than it does for Greece in the long-term: the shock that came with the realization that an EU member could lose sovereignty to such an extent is at the root of what we are now witnessing in Poland, Hungary and even in France.

Power flows from the center of the Union to the edges — not vice-versa. This exposes an inherent vulnerability. If we apply the great British statesman Tony Benn’s five questions to EU officials (What power have you got; where did you get it from; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; how can we get rid of you) from Greece’s perspective, for example, the problem becomes clear. Greece is economically a mouse, and a mouse can’t roar. Democracy, as a system of government, is supposed to smooth out these problems, stop abuses of power and hold the powerful to account. But in this case, it failed the Greek people.

3. It’s about politics, not about who is right

Once in Brussels, Greece’s negotiating team, headed by the flamboyant then-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, thought they could convince their Eurozone partners of the validity of their arguments, and that the world would be on their side.

They were right to think that the bailout programs have been catastrophic for Greece and that they didn’t take the economy’s actual strengths and capacities into account. The country’s soaring unemployment, inability to kick start growth and brain-drain problem should be evidence enough.

But the Greek team failed to realize that at the negotiating table it’s not about who’s right — it’s about politics. Eastern European countries that underwent harsh austerity in order to join the eurozone, were having none of it. Germany was determined to make an example of Greece as the bad student of Europe, and was even willing to discuss its “temporary” exit from the eurozone in exchange for debt relief.

As in Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, these politicians would face significant backlash back home, if they even so much as appeared to be letting Greece of the hook. They couldn’t — and ultimately didn’t — put Greek politics above considerations of the politics in their own countries.

4. Hope is not a political strategy

Syriza was unwilling to even remotely consider the fact that previous governments might have tried to carry out some of those same negotiations but came up against the same roadblocks. Syriza had hope, and managed to inspire in the Greek people as well. The problem is that hope is not a political strategy. And is it turns out, Syriza was seriously unprepared for a “No” from Greece’s lenders.

When the answer came, Syriza’s running of the state became erratic, almost shambolic: Debates went on and on, depleting the country’s cash reserves and ultimately forcing them to retreat and sign up for more austerity. The way the party split when they U-turned is evidence of the uneasy alliance between radicals and pragmatists inside the party, stitched together as they are by faith in a good outcome.

It all comes down to their election period promise that Greece could end austerity and stay in the euro. That proved impossible. But what was most shocking is that they weren’t prepared for a negative outcome.

After they signed the new deal and won a second round of elections in September, they ran the economy in much the same way previous governments had.

There was hope, as their posters promised. But, in the end, that’s all it was. Hope. Syriza still maintain they’re in it for the long haul, ready to change Europe if only Europe would let them. But by then it may already be too late.

5. Party politics in Greece are finished.

Personality politics and unfounded proclamations have left Greeks disillusioned with their elected representatives. Support for Syriza and for the opposition parties is plummeting. As it became obvious that PASOK, New Democracy, and Syriza governments are similarly limited in policies they can apply, many Greeks now wonder “What’s the point?”

Alexis Tsipras inspired confidence and hope. He is still more respected than previous PMs, but he’s not likely to maintain that advantage for long, as he was recently forced to backtrack on his promise to at least advance the social causes of its base, for instance, humane treatment of refugees and poor greeks.

Tsipras’ government was successful in establishing civil partnership for gay couples and giving nationality to second generation migrants in Greece, but he is now helping Frontex to dismantle the solidarity networks that did so much to help refugees arriving in the Greek islands and in Athens.

Instead, under the threat of expulsion from the Schenghen zone, he is in the process of establishing detention camps and faster deportation routes. On domestic issues, his promise to stop the repossession of houses over bad loans has gone nowhere. That wont’ play well for Syriza’s image. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Wolfgang Schäuble’s comment “It’s the implementation, stupid” might not have meant much to most people — but the fact Tsipras let it lie didn’t go down well in Greece.

Unfortunately, the other side is not fairing any better. Hopes placed on new opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis are somewhat misguided.

International observers are permanently on the lookout for the next great reformer and got it wrong before (remember George Papandreou Jr?).

Mitsotakis’ shadow cabinent appointments are simply names recycled from the previous government, with a couple of new faces mixed in with the usual nepotistic and hard-right elements.

This could spell the end of the Greek political system as we know it. Syriza, instead of being something new, became just the latest chapter of what was already there.

What will emerge in the space freed up by the old status quo remains to be seen. With many Greeks disillusioned and moving away from politics, it’s hard to imagine how anyone can lure them back to the ballot box.