Source: fortune.com - Sunday, September 20, 2015 They drove the economy into free-fall, racked up huge budget arrears, closed the country’s banks and ended up being forced into a humiliating about-turn and a new bailout program harsher than anything seen in the previous five years. Of course they won. Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza party have achieved a stunning victory at Greece’s fifth election in the last six years. Stunning not only because they finished eight percentage points ahead of their main rivals when all the opinion polls had indicated they were neck-and-neck, but also (and far more) because of their record over the last eight months. As Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank argues, in his first stint as PM, Tsipras “chose the wrong coalition partner, the wrong finance minister, the wrong policies and the wrong strategy to negotiate with the lenders who were keeping Greece afloat.” How is it possible that the voters haven’t punished him for that? Well, for one thing, it’s not clear that they haven’t. As we pointed out earlier this week , actually governing Greece under the conditions imposed by the third bailout agreement (signed by Tsipras as his economy threatened to implode in July) is going to be Purgatory. Re-election as punishment might work as a concept for many voters. But such a resounding win, in such circumstances, has to be respected for what it is. The overwhelming majority of Greeks backed parties that were commit All Related
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