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Syriza Members Warn Alexis Tsipras Against Betrayal With Greek Bailout
Compromise
Many on left wing of premier’s party say they can’t accept further
pension and wage cuts
By CHARLES FORELLE
ATHENS—To avert a default and possible exit from the eurozone, Greek
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras must sell Germany’s chancellor, Angela
Merkel, on his plan to fix Greece’s finances.
Then he needs to persuade Vassilis Chatzilamprou.
But the lawmaker from Mr. Tsipras’s left-wing Syriza party said he was
in no mood for submission.
“We cannot accept strict, recessionary measures,” Mr. Chatzilamprou said
at the Resistance Festival, an annual gathering of Greece’s far left. It
was after midnight Sunday, and the weekend festival was winding down.
“People have now reached their limits.”
Syriza isn’t a traditional party but a coalition of left-wing groups
with an intricate family tree formed out of doctrinal splinters and
squabbles. It is those many, disparate factions that Mr. Tsipras must
also satisfy with any potential bailout agreement with Greece’s creditors.
Mr. Chatzilamprou, for instance, is a member of the Communist
Organization of Greece, which is an outgrowth of the Organization of
Marxist-Leninists of Greece. It is distinct from the Communist Tendency,
which has a Trotskyite bent. (Neither should be confused with the
Communist Party of Greece, which is outside Syrzia.)
That unusual composition has made it especially hard for Mr. Tspiras to
strike a deal with eurozone and International Monetary Fund officials.
“The people who are responsible for the negotiation move within a frame
that is determined by the central committee of the party,” says Alekos
Kalyvis, a longtime union official who is on the committee and
responsible for its economic-policy portfolio.
The negotiators have some latitude to make decisions, he said, “but this
shouldn’t be interpreted as if they have a blank check from the
party—neither them nor Tspiras.”
Many of Syriza’s factions regard the party’s rise as an epochal moment
for the left—and any compromise on a bailout as a deep betrayal of its
principles.
Stathis Leoutsakos, another Syriza member of Parliament, said Germany
and the other creditor countries are determined to defeat Syriza. “In my
opinion, their aim is to humiliate the Greek government,” he says. “They
want the message that no other politics are accepted in the eurozone.”
Mr. Leoutsakos, a onetime union metalworker long active in left-wing
politics, comes from the same faction as Mr. Tspiras but is also
associated with the Left Platform, a Syriza group that has embraced a
return to the drachma.
“ ‘Rupture’ is not such a synonym of ‘catastrophe’ as it has been
presented,” Mr. Leoutsakos said.
It is also uncertain exactly what kind of deal would be acceptable to
the left wing of Syriza. The party’s argument that fiscal
austerity—steep budget cuts and tax increases—has deepened Greece’s
economic slump has been central to its popular success. Most on the
party’s left wing reject any additional pension and wage cuts outright,
saying Greek workers have suffered enough in years of depression since
Greece’s first bailout.
Mr. Leoutsakos, like others on the far left, also insist that at least
some of Greece’s debt must be forgiven. “In order to service it, we’d
need to execute the Greek people,” he said. “And nobody in Syriza is
willing to do it.”
There is also the question of Mr. Tsipras’s future as prime minister if
he does compromise. No one here is unaware of the fates of former Greek
premiers George Papandreou and Antonis Samaras. Both signed bailout
agreements with Europe. Both lost their jobs, and Mr. Papandreou’s party
has been all but destroyed.
Going back on his leftist principles “would be political suicide for
Tsipras,” Mr. Chatzilamprou said. “It would mean he is also recyclable:
They could replace him with someone else.”
At the Resistance Festival, the panoply of the Greek left is on display.
One stall sells leftist-themed comestibles, such as bottles of Red
Kitchen beer and jars of Red Kitchen marmalade. There was someone
recruiting for a flotilla to the Gaza Strip. Another group was
organizing a boycott of Coca-Cola.
“If the compromise betrays the people that supported the movement, it
would be very frustrating,” said Iraj Nobahkt, manning a stall that
sells cleaning products made by workers who took over a factory after
its owner shut it down.
Periklis Koumpouris, a self-employed heating, ventilation and
air-conditioning technician, said he was reluctantly resigned to another
painful bailout for Greece. If there is one, it will come at a political
cost, he says. “It probably means that Syriza will disappear over the
long term.”
—Apostolis Fotiadis contributed to this article.
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