The message from the Greek election must not be misunderstood. The fact that more than 36% of the country’s voters cast their ballots for Syriza,
a far-left political party, does not mean that Greece has suddenly
become communist. Rather, the electorate was expressing its indignation,
despair, and wounded national pride.
Greece’s
European partners need to understand that the election result was an
explicit rejection of five years of policies that have failed to deliver
the expected results. Moreover, the burden of the crisis was
distributed in an unjust way: most of the pain has been borne by the
poor. And, with the “troika” (the European Commission, the European
Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) intervening in the
most mundane decisions, a sense of bitterness and anger has permeated
public opinion, even among staunch pro-Europeans.
It
was this sense of lost national sovereignty that allowed Syriza to
prevail. Humiliation was a force strong enough to unite leftists and
nationalists, laying the groundwork for the creation of an
unconventional post-election coalition between Syriza and the hard-right
Independent Greeks party. So now, as talks over the country’s debt
burden and fiscal problems move forward, Greece’s negotiating partners
would do well to understand how Greeks will be viewing the process.
To
be sure, Greece’s politicians committed plenty of errors, most notably
in failing to take ownership of the structural reform plan. But their
interlocutors in Europe bear a large share of the blame as well. It is
not only in Greece that anxiety and anger over Germany’s misguided
policies and arrogant approach are mounting.
Read more: Growth, Not Grexit
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