No one can blame Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for not trying hard enough to hold the country from falling off the cliff. Like a captain in a ship hit by the roughest storm, he fights tooth and nail to keep the vessel away from the rocks. In fact, he tries so hard that he has managed to convince European partners that his leftist government is indeed willing to implement the required reforms if he is given time. He even persuaded the president of the European Commission to give Greece 2 billion euros to tackle the humanitarian crisis. In a country where restaurants and cafes are full of customers every day, the streets are full of more expensive German cars than you can see in the Autobahn, and people still retire in their forties and fifties and get pensions. And while he is in Berlin and tells the Germans that it’s about time they admit they owe Greece war reparations, even on moral grounds at least, several members of his cabinet scream that Germany has put a noose around Greece’s neck and keeps tightening it. The rhetoric of several SYRIZA cabinet members remains the same as it was when they were the opposition party: Europe is full of vile enemies, ready to suck what little blood is left of Greece. Germans are still the Third Reich Nazis and the rest of the Europeans are ruthless capitalists who turn a blind eye on poor Greece’s plight. It seems that Tsipras has a lot of enemies to fight then. But the truth is that the most cruel enemies are the ones within his own cabinet, within his own party. Because every time the Greek Premier makes a statement that would sound good to the creditors’ ears, his comrades rush to state something that counteracts his words. And creditors become confused, they don’t know what to believe. For instance, when he says that Greece belongs in the Eurozone and he will do everything in his power to remain there, Deputy Finance Minister Euclides Tsakalotos boldly says that the only way out of the economic crisis is the return to the drachma. When Tsipras talks of privatizations, Minister of Productive Reconstruction Panagiotis Lafazanis will rush to say that state property remains state property. When the PM says that Europeans are our economic partners and allies, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikos Kotzias runs to Russia to “tighten friendship bonds” at a time when the EU has imposed sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine issue. And Lafazanis will follow close behind, seeking energy deals with Russia, while the word “rift” is often coming out of his lips. A word that is dangerously repeated by many within the ruling party lately. There are other key SYRIZA members who oppose Tsipras’ strategies. MEP Manolis Glezos, the 92-year-old emblematic figure of the Greek Left, recently apologized to the Greek people for participating in the illusion that SYRIZA would change things. MP Alexis Mitropoulos said that the party may not be able to keep its campaign promises to the Greek people. Several others expressed similar sentiments, indirectly accusing Tsipras of not keeping true to his pledges to the Greek people to abolish the Memoranda and put an end to austerity. The Greek Premier is now between a rock and a hard place. He knows that in order to keep the country in the Eurozone — which after all was one of his campaign pledges — he would have to cross swords with his party’s hardcore leftists. It should be noted that while the “left platform” is continuously grumbling, they haven’t offered an alternative yet, not even a proposal. And repeating meaningless slogans about sovereignty, pride, dignity and the “people’s mandate” is not going to fill the state coffers. One way or another, Greece will stay afloat between now and June when the four-month extension deal expires. But when the time comes to sign a new agreement, then all hell may break loose: a conflict within SYRIZA that would force the government to resort to a referendum over the euro. And so far, polls show that the vast majority of Greeks want to stay in the Eurozone.
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