Two days after the election, Greece is as divided as ever over what the new regime will mean for the future
Here are a few more reactions – from both ends of the political spectrum – to the election results from some of the people I have spoken to over the past 10 days.
Andreas Constantinou, of Visionmobile, one of the thrusting young coLab startups, was downbeat about Greece's long-term future. "Thankfully," he said, "it looks like we will have a government that intends to honour the financial commitments the state has made."
But an increasing number of well-informed people are doubting that this level of debt can ever actually be repaid. By 2013, some analysts reckon, Greece will be borrowing from the troika to make interest payments alone, and zero capital repayments.
Yannis Bogiopoulos, one of the striking journalists at Greece's now-defunct left-leaning daily Eleftherotypia, once the country's second-largest newspaper, had this succinct analysis: "One, the true winners of the elections are Syriza. They were murmuring, 'We are not ready – yet.' Two. Alas, we learned there are 400,000 fascists in Greece. Even if they dont know what fascism means.
"Three. Conservative New Democracy and Socialist Pasok, the big two traditional parties, don't need the Democratic Left party to make a government. But it is their only way to spell out that this is a new government – not the one that made the memorandum."
Dimitris Koutsolioutsos, who is behind the genius scheme that lets city dwellers rent a patch of land from a farmer on which he will grow the fresh veg they need at 70% less than the shop price, wasn't impressed either.
"I do not believe the changes needed in Greece are really going to take place," he said. "The elections showed that nothing is going to change while we continue to trust the old political system. I am not a huge fan of Alexis Tsipras [of Syriza], as I believe he is actually just like the others: telling lies and fairytales to people in order to win their votes.
"What is needed for progress in this country is a new political party supported by people from real life. We need a political party founded on realism. And what was really negative was the almost 40% of the people who did not go to vote."
