Greece’s Alexis Tsipras Seeks to Revive his Political Fortunes on Economic Promises

Europe’s most electorally successful populist has become nearly as unpopular as the Greek political establishment he ousted almost two years ago

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI and  MARCUS WALKER
Sept. 11, 2016 2:15 p.m. ET


THESSALONIKI, Greece—Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, languishing in polls, sought to reboot his premiership over the weekend. But his economically depressed country has largely given up hope on the imminent change he is promising.

Europe’s most electorally successful populist has become nearly as unpopular as the Greek political establishment he ousted almost two years ago. A recent survey showed only 19% of Greeks view him favorably and 85% are dissatisfied with his government.



Such low approval ratings—familiar to Europe’s least-popular establishment politicians, such as French President François Hollande—reflect how the star of the eurozone’s antiausterity movement has come down to earth.

Because of its deep economic crisis, Greece was ahead of the rest of Europe in the revolt against mainstream centrist parties. Elsewhere, antiestablishment populists of the anticapitalist left and the nationalist right are now on the rise. In Greece, they have been partners in government since early 2015, in a coalition led by Mr. Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza party, and their appeal is on the wane.

Economic recovery, which Mr. Tsipras has repeatedly promised and is counting on to revive his fortunes, has so far failed to materialize. Tax increases to reach the tough budget goals of Greece’s international bailout, and capital controls to protect the fragile banking system, are set to keep Greece in recession this year.

The 42-year-old premier used a major speech over the weekend to tell Greeks that better days are beginning. “There is light at the end of the tunnel and it is now visible,” Mr. Tsipras told an audience of businesspeople and politicians at the annual trade fair in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-biggest city after Athens. “We have to hold on. With tenacity and persistence, we will soon be in calmer waters.”

The speech sought to present “an upbeat explanation of what’s going on. But what’s going on is total stasis,” said Theodore Couloumbis, emeritus professor of politics at Athens University.

Around 5,000 police officers cordoned the premier’s events in Thessaloniki, protecting him from demonstrations that drew around 13,000 protesters on Saturday. Mr. Tsipras used to be among the leaders of such antigovernment protests.

“I don’t like this picture either,” Mr. Tsipras said at Sunday news conference, referring to the heavy police presence.

Many locals say they didn’t bother to listen to his Saturday-night speech.

“No matter what he says, nothing is going to change now; it’s too late,” said Panagiotis Kostakis, a retiree who watched the speech. Greece needs rebuilding from the foundations, he said, sipping his Sunday coffee with other pensioners.

Mr. Tsipras retains political strengths. His boy-next-door charisma and modest middle-class background contrast with the elite roots of most top Greek politicians, including conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Harvard-educated scion of a political dynasty.

“Tsipras is an attractive young person who does not create feelings of revulsion in the public. But even this guy is losing his appeal because people are feeling it in their pockets,” Mr. Couloumbis said.

The most recent opinion polls put Mr. Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party ahead of Syriza by between four and 10 percentage points. Snap elections, common in Greece, though, aren’t expected soon. Mr. Tsipras’s parliamentary majority is slim but cohesive.

In August, Mr. Tsipras burnished his antiestablishment credentials by picking a fight with Greece’s unpopular media barons, squeezing them for money in a bruising auction for broadcast licenses that left some television stations facing closure.

Over the weekend Mr. Tsipras promised to spend the TV auction receipts, €246 million ($276 million), on the welfare state. “Every last euro will go to where it belongs: to the Greek people,” he said. The sum is small compared with the billions of euros in savings that Greece needs for deficit reduction.

Syriza was a fringe grouping of Marxists and other radicals until Greece’s debt crisis catapulted it to prominence, culminating in election victory in January 2015.

Mr. Tsipras, who had long said Greece could end fiscal austerity if only it wanted to, tried to force the country’s Germany-led creditors to loosen the terms of its bailout. He failed, and had to sign a humiliating surrender: a new bailout deal that deepened and prolonged the austerity.

Despite that climbdown, Syriza won re-election in September 2015 because Greeks didn’t want to return to rule under their old parties, which are widely blamed for steering Greece into its debt crisis.

A year on, however, life under Syriza largely resembles what came before. The government is stuck in endless rounds of talks with creditors about hitting the deal’s budget targets. The main change is that Syriza’s austerity relies more on raising taxes than cutting spending.

“We are well aware of the difficult point at which the Greek economy and society currently are, and the accumulated fatigue that Greeks have after six years of austerity,” said Syriza lawmaker Sokratis Famellos. The government knows it can’t lift the gloom quickly, but it will do so steadily, he said.

Despite the setbacks, Mr. Tsipras can’t be written off, says George Pagoulatos, professor of European political economy at the Athens University of Economics and Business, and a prominent critic of the government. “The majority of people have decided that Tsipras has failed, and that he lied to them. But as an individual, he’s viewed as more like them, with his failings, than other contenders,” he said.