SYRIZA: Alexis Tsipras and the doctrine of ‘scorched earth’

By Niki Zorba

In the twilight of 2021 when Alexis Tsipras during the debate on the adoption of the budget called for elections and despite the leaks of the previous period that SYRIZA does not ask for them while the pandemic is in full swing, he and the party were looking for a convincing answer to “why now”, what has changed since the pandemic crisis is not over.

They used a lot of arguments to justify the “change of line” – according to other excuses – so that the president and the party do not appear inconsistent. After all, everyone within SYRIZA supported the electoral request and considered it imperative.

In addition to the Tsiodra-Lytra exhibition that was utilized Koumoundourou and was considered a game changer for the attitude of SYRIZA, among other things, they put forward individually by executives and arguments “to save anything if we save”.

It was the first time that -spermed- and not coordinated, prominent SYRIZA executives, left suspicions that if the “catastrophic Mitsotaki government” continues to rule then the damage would be too great to be corrected by a government of progressive forces – always with SYRIZA as its backbone and under the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. certainly.

Commonly, the foundations for the “doctrine of the scorched earth” had been laid since the sorrows of 2022. Alexis Tsipras, however, finally both at the conference and in the interview that followed the conference proceedingsdescribed it clearly.

The exhaustion of SYRIZA “ammunition”

“The difficult thing will be to rebuild the economy and society the next day,” he said. “And there I want to set the bar where we can pass it. And I said it at the Conference: as the days go by, if Mr. Mitsotakis runs out of four years, he will run out and every opportunity of his own not to win, to have a “It is a decent result, but at the same time it is depleting our own ammunition, our own ammunition, so that we can effectively create conditions for recovery and normalcy,” he added. “This is the reality,” he concluded clearly enough.

In order to clarify this, the president of SYRIZA did not hesitate – always in the same context, as an interviewee – to further clarify:

“Because if for a year a policy of inaction and apathy against this social looting continues, we will be led to a humanitarian crisis. So when the citizen will not have to pay the bill and the electricity company comes and cuts off the electricity, when “If it can meet the monthly demands and have access to the basic consumer goods that have caught fire, then we will have a humanitarian crisis in the country again. And it is unfair for us to be called upon to face a humanitarian crisis again.”

An understandable message is “we are in danger of receiving burnt land” as long as the “political change” is delayed and the N.D. government remains in power.

It will be interesting if this “narrative” over time (and if indeed the announcement of the elections by Kyriakos Mitsotakis is made in the Spring of 23, as the Prime Minister has recently stated) will change and to what extent the infamous 5 + 1 program commitments of SYRIZA.