Keyword: Alexis Tsipras

Greek Elections and the Euro Leper Colony

Picture: A poster held up during the victory speech of Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras on 25 January, courtesy Neurope. Greg Palast - Europe is stunned, and bankers aghast, that the new party of the Left, Syriza, won Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Greece. Syriza won on the promise that it will cure Greece of leprosy. Oddly, Syriza also promises that it will remain in the leper colony. That is, Syriza wants to rid Greece of the cruelty of austerity imposed by the European Central Bank but insists on staying in the euro zone. The problem is, austerity run wild is merely a symptom of an illness. The...

Syriza: A Party of Modern Class Struggle

Picture: Cubanet Video Speaking about the historic victory of Greece’s anti-austerity party, Syriza, Leo Panitch, distinguished research professor at York University in Toronto says Syriza is a party of modern class struggle, in which not only the working class in the old sense, but more dynamically the new working class made up of knowledge workers, women and immigrants, are represented. Syriza is a party that embedded itself in social movements in the last decade, so it's a very different beast. Panitch...

Will the Greek Elections Strengthen the Hands of the Global South?

Picture: Greece Alexander O'Riordan - This week Greece elected into power the left-wing political party, Syriza, headed by Alexis Tsipras, who led the party to victory on an anti-austerity ticket, thus rattling financial markets by raising the spectre of a Greek exit from the Eurozone and snubbing the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund troika of lenders to Greece. As it turns out, I happen to be in Brussels this week, the city where the EU has its headquarters. The word on the...