The stories are swirling round the place that the new government is split on the agreement with the Eurogroup. However, in an opinion poll published today, SYRIZA has jumped from 36% in the election to 42% and Alexis Tsipras popularity rating has soared. As mentioned previously, the dissent is within SYRIZA and it is foolish for MPs not to wait to see how things work out. Next week, the government will introduce the first of its new legislation. There are bills to tackle the 'humanitaris crisis' the payment of tax and social insurance arrears, primary residence foreclosures and the re-opening of ERT, the former national TV channel closed by the previous government. These measures are unlikely to be cost-neutral, especially tackling the humanitarian crisis, and it begs the question about where the money will come from to pay for them. There are all sorts of forecasts about Greece running out of money in the next two to four weeks as well as commentary that SYRIZA was not prepared for government so, as the article below points out, Tsipras is on a knife edge and the saga continues.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11441482/Humiliated-Greece-eyes-Byzantine-pivot-as-crisis-deepens.html
26/02/2015
A New Chapter in the Greek Saga.
The election on January 25th is well and truly over and a month later the new government, composed of SYRIZA and the Independent Greek Party (ANEL), has managed to negotiate a four-month 'extension' of the existing bailout agreement. The question of who won or lost is still being discussed but this will taper off as the government attempts to tackle the issues and points which form the basis of the extended agreement.
Many people believe that Greece got very little and have made far too many concessions but they are still supporting the government, or at least not demonstrating against it yet. A very real threat to the stability of the government comes from within SYRIZA itself. A good number of SYRIZA MPs have communist backgrounds and are said to be unhappy about the agreement and the fact that many of the key electoral promises were dropped during the discussions with the EU. It's being reported that Alexis Tsipras, the Prime Minister, spent 11 hours discussing and defending the agreement to the MPs in his party yesterday. Panayiotis Lafazanis is seen as a key figure in the hard left section of the party and disagrees with the party position about not rolling back on privatisations that have been carried out. So far there is no outward sign of major dissent within the SYRIZA but the opinion is being expressed in Athens that the situation is likely to boil over and SYRIZA may implode. While voters may be prepared to adopt a wait and see approach, a significant number of SYRIZA MPs, and perhaps ministers, may not.
The government is inexperienced and it seems foolish not to wait to see how things develop. Generally, politicians get nervous when something spooks the electorate, resulting in a threat to their re-election. However, we haven't reached that point yet so there is no point in having 'a mutiny' at this stage. Also, if an election were called due to a government collapse, the people are likely to blame the politicians who caused that to happen and vote them out anyway. The scale of opposition within SYRIZA will become clearer fairly soon but where all this leads to is anyone's guess.
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