Collapse of Greece's dominant parties

ATHENS — The collapse of Greece’s dominant parties in Sunday’s elections swept a new political force onto the scene here: the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, a pro-euro yet anti-austerity party that has Greece’s creditors trembling with its calls for the country to reject its current loan agreement and nationalize the banks.

Although Syriza’s energetic 37-year-old leader, Alexis Tsipras, failed to form a left-wing governing coalition, his party’s unexpected success — with 16.8 percent of the vote, besting the once-mighty Socialists, who garnered only 13 percent, and placing second after the center-right New Democracy’s 18.8 percent — has upended Greece’s political order.

As political leaders struggle to form a government, Mr. Tsipras has emerged as a rising star in Greek politics. He turned down an offer from the Socialists to join a multiparty coalition, that way making it ever more likely that Greece will be forced into new elections next month. If so, that will be fine with Mr. Tsipras, whose party is now the country’s most popular, with support from 24 percent of the electorate, according to a survey this week by the polling company Marc for the Alpha television channel.

Mr. Tsipras is hoping to follow the success of François Hollande in France and ride a tide of anti-austerity sentiment to convince even more Greeks that Syriza is not simply a protest vote but a responsible alternative to the status quo, a break from four decades of ossified two-party government in a country where the debt crisis has redrawn the political map.

“I could not even imagine some months ago that Tsipras would be the second party and would have a chance to rule,” said Nikos Xydakis, a political analyst. In Mr. Xydakis’s view, after the cold war and the boom years, the debt crisis pushed Greece into a new historical cycle. “We are in the beginning of the great European depression, and Greece is the first link to crack, so politics change and Alexis Tsipras tries to begin another circle. He’s very good at capturing the momentum.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/world/europe/in-greece-leftist-party-syriza-upends-politics.html