The triumph of Kyriakos Mitsotakis takes Greece to the past

The experience of a leftist government in Greece This culminated Sunday, July 7 with the election of Kiriakos Mitsotakis, the right-wing New Democracy party, to the post of prime minister. Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza, transferred command after four years of a government that tried to rebel against the mandates of the European Union and international organizations, but that was halfway there.

In that same column, shortly after the elections of January 25, 2015, we stated that Alexis Tsipras had inherited from a country shattered by the adjustment policies imposed by the "troika", the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission and that the vote for Syriza – the acronym of the Radical Left Coalition in Greek – was worth to try in another way.

On January 25, 2015, there were strong rumors in Athens that a possible triumph of Syriza would leave banks without euro and risk being left out of the eurozone and the European Union, even though Tsipras declared himself not to have any. no intention to leave the euro.

READ MORE

Agreement with the EU: a lot of noise and few nuts

At the mercy of the "troika", without his own currency and with a meager parliamentary majority, Tsipras tried to govern in a dilemma: if he challenged the European Union, he risked being excluded without even elaborating a plan. "b". On the other hand, accepting the conditions of the "troika" would not be different from that of previous governments. In June 2015, Tsipras called for a referendum against the impositions of the "troika" and 61% of the population declared "oxy" in the European Union. However, despite popular support, Tsipras accepted the conditions a week later, causing a crisis in his party and a disappointment among those who supported him.

Syriza was more radical in his speech than in practice; and maybe the people – this time – punished him for not daring to be consistent with his speech.

This context allows us to understand that the party of the new democracy obtained 39.8% of the votes and an absolute majority in the Parliament, thanks to an old law granting to the winner a bonus of 50 seats. while Syriza, with 31.5%, obtained a similar number to that of 2015, despite the erosion of the government, which had obtained less than 5% ten years ago, since always support the main means of communication .

Those who voted for Kyriakos Mitsotakis they did it with hope, though for many, it means a return to politics from a more painful past.

When he turned 90 in 2015, the great composer Mikis Theodorakis said that he felt uncomfortable to be honored amid the suffering of so many people. But he also added that his only consolation was knowing that this pain lived in hope and that one day this pain would disappear.

NOTE PUBLISHED ON CNN IN SPANISH