Panagiotis Lafazanis (centre) announces the formation of a new anti-bailout party, Popular Unity, formed from Syriza rebels. Demotix/Wassilis Aswestopoulos. All rights reserved.
The January 25 elections that brought the Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition government to power seem like a distant memory. In the few months it tried to govern, the Greek political setting changed considerably giving rise to a Syriza 2.0 - that is a rump version of its earlier self with the creation of a parliamentary group on its left claiming to be the true representative of the Syriza’s radical left rhetoric and ideology. The cause for the split? A new bailout deal between Greece and its creditors that Alexis Tsipras negotiated and asked Parliament to ratify in contradiction to the promises and ideological premises of his party while in opposition. Hence, the call for snap elections on 20 September.
Syriza’s rupture is symptomatic of an ongoing realignment of the political system, as the voters have become more disparate in their choices. One could assess that the popular discontent with the political system in Greece has actually brought about more democracy rather than less, as it has challenged the post-1974 consensus of two major ideologically opposed political parties vying for the right to govern to a more muddled, more heteroclite, more representative political system reflective of the broken down post-dictatorship two party consensus. It also has given rise to populism with whose wave Syriza won the elections and the ‘incongruous’ Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition was justified. It has also brought to the fore a new force – the apathetic voter represented by 36% of the electorate in the January elections and who may grow in the forthcoming September elections.
