Source: www.slate.com - Monday, January 26, 2015 Alexis Tsipras was sworn in as Greece’s new prime minister today after his left-wing Syriza party, campaigning on a pledge to renegotiate the strict terms of the country’s bailout, trounced the mainstream parties in a snap election held yesterday. Syriza won 149 seats in Greece’s 300 seat parliament, putting it just two short of an outright majority. To get over the top, it partnered with the right-wing Independent Greeks party . The two parties are sharply at odds on a number of issues—from immigration to the role of the Orthodox Church in politics—but both want Greece to write off its debts and roll back the strict austerity measures imposed as part of the bailout package. In exchange for billions of dollars in loans from the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF -- the so-called “troika" -- Greece’s government agreed to steep cuts to social programs and government spending. Tsipras now says he wants to renegotiate the terms of the deal and has pledged to raise the minimum wage and hire back public sector workers, moves that are probably irreconcilable with the demands of the country’s lenders, particularly fiscal disciplinarian Germany. Tsipras maintains that he doesn’t want to take Germany off the euro, but if the two sides can’t reach an agreement, that scenario becomes more likely. The Greek election kicked off what could be a breakthrough year for anti-establishment parties as well as anti-EU appeals from both the lefAll Related
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