“THAT SYRIZA failed in opposition and as opposition.” Here is what we wrote 15 months ago, on February 14, 2022, from these columns. This is about what other analyzes have described. Black shadows on the image of the party because of its past government action are not eternal (unless this action is connected with a national catastrophe). And the SYRIZA government, in my opinion, has achieved several successes, such as good financial performance, debt settlement, progress on rights issues, a better solution to the problem of extreme poverty, and most important for the country (and for the leftist SYRIZA identity) the Prespa agreement. . These successes did not come by themselves, they were realized by the leadership and personnel of SYRIZA.

The government of SYRIZA had, of course, also negative sides. However, being in opposition to the party gives him, among other things, a decisive opportunity: to renew himself, to repair the cracks in his image, to reflect on his mistakes, to renew his political headquarters, to start all over again.

It didn’t happen, or it didn’t happen enough. SYRIZA’s heavy electoral defeat is due to its opposition, not to the negative memories created by its government. Undoubtedly, the outcome of the election depends on the behavior of other players, N.D. and PASOK. The pathogen does not have a single cause. But here let’s focus on SYRIZA. The decline of SYRIZA in the elections is due to SYRIZA, and if other factors clearly influenced what happened, then it was the SYRIZA system and everything connected with it that led to a heavy defeat. SYRIZA couldn’t.

A lack of trust (distance between promises and actions) and a lack of managerial competence (quality of political personnel, limited effectiveness) were two of the worst negative consequences of a difficult period of leftist rule. But why did SYRIZA 2023 always show up, with minor changes, the same negative characteristics of 2019? Why did they acquire stereotypical characteristics? And if a change in management suggests inspiration and a strong “movement” in society and a driving force that mobilizes discontent, but also suggests a positive vision, then why did we have a reverse strong movement and what was the “driving force” of the march to the great fall? ? The following actions and inactions, among many others, are likely to answer these questions.

Dark Trinity 2019.

Negativism against SYRIZA mainly developed around three – mutually reinforcing – thematic axes: the axis of inefficiency / lack of competence, the axis of insecurity (distrust of promises, “liars”, “thugs”) and the third, political-cultural, which I named from these columns ” a serious deficit in the vocabulary of political representation (angry speech, far from the general mind, but also the soul of the majority of their own electorate). All three of these aspects did not represent unmanageable shortcomings.

The SYRIZA team did not pursue a targeted policy to overcome this negativity. Sometimes it worked the other way around. Instead of building its policy on documentation, on the seriousness, on the stability of the choice (this was imposed by the negative aspects of the party’s image), instead of striving to fix itself as a serious force for future state changes (which does not mean not to confuse my Syrian friends, moderate or non-radical force) was written as the opposite: as a force of “light” – very light – opposition. Thus, although many of the positions he formulated were correct, the axis was wrong. You do not multiply, for example, promises of benefits, recruitment and relief of any kind, when the central aspect of your image is the inability to keep old promises. It is characteristic, while one is talking to friends and SYRIZA leaders, that the dimension, illusory or not, of “seriousness”, “good edits”, “we know where we are going”. This is an integral characteristic of the phenomenon, which I would call “SYRIZA in opposition”.

The third negative aspect of SYRIZA is the political discourse. SYRIZA has not found “morphological” keys to communicate with society. Describing the life of citizens as hell, and the politics of the enemy in the darkest terms, SYRIZA was removed from the public consciousness. SYRIZA is tired of being boring, not to surprise, not to say a “kind word”. The vocabulary was neither ghostly nor selectively polarizing. The speech was stereotyped and therefore seemed almost “spiritual”. However, in democratic systems, the language is politics. And it gives results.

Without a command, message and return of “modern” to the opponent

The bulk of SYRIZA leaders have been at the center of public life since at least 2012. Many (mostly economists) have left, others have fallen by the wayside, and executives whom Alexis Tsipras promoted lavishly, often at a young age, often found themselves below the circumstances. They offered no ideological, intellectual, or political dynamics. However, together with the famous think tank, Tsipras was moving in the right direction of quality and dynamism. However, the balance of power suffered (see below).

People go along with the programs. SYRIZA has not been able to create a new “collective expectation” through its leadership, personnel and program, it has not been able to formulate a political agenda in time with a strong “centering” and excellent ideas. The adoption throughout the period of opposition, but to a lesser extent during the pre-election period, of negative discourse, a heavy emphasis on redistributive measures and the almost “invisible” presence of structural reforms (exception: KPP, NBG, Development Bank) robbed SHEPOT of the ability to pleasantly surprise the electorate.

At the same time, the generation that made SYRIZA great, the Tsipras generation, asserting its identity in the era of the modernizing PASOK, identified modernization with neo-liberalism, with privatization and confusion. However, the Western Left has always been a co-creator of Western societies as modern societies. And in the programs of the historical Coalition, the central role was assigned to the goal of “left modernization”. In a country that has gone bankrupt and because of clientelist “liberalism”, the inefficiency of public administration and non-industry restructuring of the economy, you cannot give the modernizing elites to N.D. This is exactly what the leadership of SYRIZA did. Influence on elections? Unfavorable for SYRIZA.

The Party Headquarters, instead of basing its policy on documentation and seriousness, was recorded as the opposite: as a force of “light”—very light—opposition.

Defeat of the opposition

Much more than direct democracy, representative democracy teaches citizens to form their opinions on the basis of the longevity of the state and the public good (Nadia Urbinati). SYRIZA did not participate in this long conflict.

An understaffed and time-worn political machine, devoid of all-encompassing ideas, was fighting few dynamic new faces, no reserves, few in-depth developments, and no clear strategic goal setting.

The great team of Herosiaphas, Iliopoulos and Xanthos (probably the only great team that SYRIZA has) didn’t work as a team – not even before the elections. The SYRIZA economists have remained “invisible” despite their very interesting developments (while the talented Efi Ahtsioglu is not yet big enough to speak to the business world). Thus, the battles for the economy were reduced to a competition of benefits. In also a critical area of ​​foreign policy, the good officials in Kumunduru remained closed, with only one representative (G. Katrugalos) publicly representing the party.

Consequently, the disposition of forces was poor and the coordination of the army inadequate. In essence, SYRIZA left, like Grouchy at Waterloo (to paraphrase Stefan Zweig), most of the available forces to “loiter aimlessly away from the battlefield.”

Tsipras’ opposition was too stereotyped for the Greek electorate, lacking depth and therefore worse than his government.

In general, SYRIZA, instead of focusing on the renewal of the party, both on political cadres and on ideas, offers a different image – its own left image – for the Greece of the future, instead of appealing to groups that they wish for a modern state . and countries, they preferred polarization with an emblem, for every evil that happened in the country, “Mitsotakis’ Signature”.

Politics has not turned into a conflict of working competing projects and persons embodying them, there has not been a real battle for the “duration of the state”. On election night, it turned out that an overloaded car without strong brakes was going downhill. The bad moments of the campaign only accelerated the downward spiral.

Tsipras is a leader “close to the people”. This restored minority political space and made voting for the radical left impossible. The applause in the Central Committee of his party was an act of love and a fair act of recognition for one who spoke to the soul of the left world.

The opposition he created was too stereotypical for the Greek electorate, lacking depth and therefore worse than his government. In this opposition is the “driving force” of the movement towards a great fall. His duties are very great. On June 25, in extremely unfavorable conditions, it will be possible to see what else this important player is capable of.

Mr. Gerasimos Moshonas is Professor of Comparative Political Analysis at Panteion University.