"Alexis Tsipras is one of the few Greek politicians who have understood the nature of the problem and who are, because of that, prepared to embark on new courses".
Quite surprising that this statement would come from Prof. Hans-Werner Sinn, as quoted in the Handelsblatt. Sinn's point is that, with present policies, there will have to be an open or hidden debt forgiveness, then there will need to be new loans, to be followed by new debt forgivenesses, etc. Sinn argues that only a return to a local currency will allow Greece to regain competitiveness.
Quite surprising that this statement would come from Prof. Hans-Werner Sinn, as quoted in the Handelsblatt. Sinn's point is that, with present policies, there will have to be an open or hidden debt forgiveness, then there will need to be new loans, to be followed by new debt forgivenesses, etc. Sinn argues that only a return to a local currency will allow Greece to regain competitiveness.
Then Herr Sinn has misunderstood Tsipras. Tsipras isn't Lafazanis (SYRIZA's no.2, who would gladly go to the drachma). Tsipras is trying to play an Andreas Papandreou game. Yesterday Tsipras took aboard even a former ANEL MP (ANEL is on the right of ND in the political spectrum), because exactly she had left ANEL and she was voting with SYRIZA all this time. Tsipras doesn't intend to leave the euro. If he has to, he will do anything to show that Germany is kicking him out of the euro and have public opinion of the southern countries turn even more against Merkel.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem with Tsipras, is that he isn't used in doing compromises for matters that go against the declared ideology of his party. If he insists on maximalistic positions up to the end, he may indeed end up with the drachma.
But not by choice. Tsipras, if things go south, has 2 political escape routes: 1) Referendum (Merkel doesn't give me a better deal, what do you want me to do? I ask you the people, because we of the left are democracts bla bla bla, 2) Go into a long impasse with Merkel and try to unite the population behind him for a Grexit, that will be forced by Merkel and use the rage against Merkel to keep things from falling apart (Greeks only unite against an external common enemy). The problem though, is that this doesn't last forever, but it is certainly a better policy than simply go out and say "we are leaving the euro". With "Merkel is kicking us out of the euro", he can gain some time.
And to add to that, Tsipras must first win. ND can't win these elections. Samaras will make a favour to everyone, including his own party, to go home and retire. But, SYRIZA can lose these elections, on his own mistakes. Tsipras must, for 20 days, stop his various MPs, from going on the tv and saying opposing things, some of which a bit too radical for the former PASOK voter to digest. So, you have Tsipras, with his loyal MPs on the one side, that go on tv and calm down people, say nothing terrible will happen and you have others from the more radical groups of SYRIZA, who more or less go on TV to anounce that Che Guevara is coming. This, is damaging from SYRIZA, combined with a campaign of terror from both the interior and from abroads, with the german media leading the way.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, any threats coming from Germany are adding to Tsipras' percentage. The best thing to help Tsipras, is have Schauble and Merkel a couple of days before the elections, threatening with Grexit.
Even though i despise Tsipras, i do hope he wins, because he is the only one that can attempt a program renegotiation and at the end, when it will come to everyday administration of the country, he will take attrition and show that mpretty speeches don't bring miraculous results.
Further proof of Tsipras trying to play Andreas Papandreou. Tsipras, is a declared atheist and when he was an opposition party of 3%, he had nothing but daggers to throw at the church. Last summer, he visited Mount Athos and not just that, he even waited awake until past midnight, for a bishop to come from Crete. Today, which is "Epiphany" holiday, Tsipras didn't only go to church, but he even volunteered to be part of the ceremony and here you can see him freeing a white pidgeon (Holy Spirit representation):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.protothema.gr/politics/article/440025/tsipras-me-orthodoxia-kai-leuka-peristeria/
Because, you know, once in the ballot box, the vote of a religious voter, counts the same as one of an atheist. So, Tsipras, like a good chameleon, goes phishing everywhere nowdays! This is Andreas Papandreou repicy 100%. Papandreou in 1981 demolished the comunist party (which everyone was afraid it would take many votes) with slogans like "EEC and NATO, the same syndicate", "out of here the military bases of death" and once he became PM, he milked the EEC cohesion funds, payed a truckload of money on US/German/French weapons, to the point that we were armed to the teeth and laid path to enter the euro (although he died a bit earlier).
And in 1981, ND tried to stop him with fear too ("Papandreou will take your houses", "we will become comunist country"). It didn't work back then, won't work now either, despite Tsipras being much less charismatic than Andreas...
Isn't it beautiful looking at the white pigeon?
DeleteAnd you made the most important remark: "the vote of a religious voter, counts the same as one of an atheist."
So Tsipras - as any other politician - intends to gather as many votes as possible. And in Switzerland we have a famous proverb:
"Nachdem Politiker etwas vor der Wahl versprochen haben, kann man doch nicht von ihnen verlangen, es auch noch zu realisieren"
(When politicians promise something before the election, we are not entitled to ask that afterwards they do implement it ;)
H.Trickler