Alexis Tsipras, the former student activist who rose to become Greece’s first radical leftwing prime minister, has resigned as leader of Syriza four days after the party’s crushing defeat in general elections.
Eight years after taking Europe by storm, Tsipras said he was stepping down to make way for a new leader who could oversee Syriza’s “profound renewal”.
“The time has come to start a new cycle. The negative result can and must become the beginning of this cycle,” he said in a televised address announcing the surprise move.
He said change was vital if the opposition party was to successfully face the most rightwing parliament elected in Greece since the end of military rule.
Combining rare charisma and political instinct, Tsipras took what was an alliance of leftwing radicals, Marxist-Leninists, ex-communists, Trotskyists, ecologists and social democrats from the fringes of Greek political life to centre stage.
Between 2008, when he took over the coalition’s helm, and 2015, when he was catapulted into office on an anti-austerity platform at the height of Greece’s debt crisis, Syriza’s vote jumped from 3.5% to 36%.
In Europe, few politicians on the left have been as successful. Riding a wave of populist rhetoric, Tsipras was hailed as an unstoppable force unafraid to take on the near-bankrupt nation’s immovable international creditors as fury mounted over the punishing reforms, cuts and tax increases demanded in return for rescue loans.
Only when Greece teetered on the edge of leaving the eurozone did the government agree to the bailout terms.
“For those who voted Syriza, this will be a day of mourning,” said Dimitris Christopoulos, the dean of the department of political science at Panteion University in Athens. “But it had to be done. His resignation was sine qua non for the day after. There are many who will see it as honourable but will also think it should have been done earlier.”
Tsipras, 48, had been left reeling by Syriza’s defeat on Sunday. In an electoral cycle prolonged by an inconclusive poll in May, the party had been pummelled, losing nearly half its MPs and seeing its vote drop from 32% in 2019 to less than 18%.
As Greece’s centre-right prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, revelled in the triumph of securing more than 40% and a second term in office – despite scandals and disasters that had triggered widespread protests – cadres in Syriza acknowledged they had been thrown into an existential crisis even if the party had been able to hold on to its position as the main opposition.
Analysts attributed the poor result to Tsipras’s failure to tap into the zeitgeist and offer either a vision or persuasive government programme at a time when Greeks were eager to enjoy the normalcy of economic recovery overseen by Mitsotakis in recent years.
“He is a hugely talented politician but he had lost touch with society,” said Fabian Perrier, whose biography, Alexis Tsipras: A Greek Story charts his transformation from radical leftwinger to a wannabe social democrat. “He waged an overly negative campaign and that was a huge mistake. People have moved beyond the crisis. Their only interest now is how their lives can be made better.”
Perrier said Tsipras had also made the error of chasing centrist voters, frequently appearing at socialist group meetings in Europe while appealing to traditional centre-left supporters at home.
In the quest to appeal to the mainstream, the leader, though always tie-less, soon replaced his casual sartorial style with finely cut suits, brogues and a Barbour jacket – a change of dress that reflected his gradual move to less anti-establishment views. “When the left runs after the centre, it loses,” Perrier said. “It’s the case Europe-wide.”
On Thursday, Tsipras acknowledged that accommodations had been made by Syriza despite Greeks voting overwhelmingly to reject bailout conditions in a referendum. Factions within the alliance broke away as anger mounted over the U-turn.
“This difficult journey had compromises and difficult decisions and injuries and attrition,” he said, noting that initially Syriza had been regarded with great suspicion abroad. “But it was a journey that left a mark on history.”
In the wake of last weekend’s defeat, leftwingers who risked their lives during the dark years of the nation’s 1967-74 military dictatorship voiced fears that Syriza had lost moral and political capital on its road to transformation. “We had got to the point where we didn’t know whether we were left, centre-left or centrists,” said Makis Balaouras, a former Syriza MP who had been jailed and tortured by the junta.
Contenders to replace Tsipras are expected to begin jockeying for position in the coming days. Whoever emerges on top will have to not only revitalise the party but “re-establish” a new Syriza that will, Tsipras said, “embrace all the friends and social groups that we want to represent” – at a time when one in four Greeks are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to the country’s statistical authority.
