Alexis Tsipras: icon of Greece's debt woe years

Alexis Tsipras, who said he will step down as leader of his party after a crushing defeat at the polls, once embodied Greece's anti-austerity defiance against its international creditors before a dramatic U-turn that alienated his supporters.

In the throes of Greece's debt crisis in 2015, the then 40-year-old engineer had stormed to power on a vow to scrap creditors' terms that had heaped mass layoffs and swinging salary cuts on Greeks.

Over four turbulent years, he nearly crashed his debt-laden country out of the euro, taking huge gambles in tough negotiations with EU leaders like then chancellor Angela Merkel.

But he would finally cave in, signing on to Greece's final bailout deal with painful terms prescribed by the IMF and the EU that his supporters said was a betrayal of his election promises.

In 2019, he lost the election against the conservatives led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who four years on, has beaten him so soundly that it has led him to step down from the helm of his party.

Tsipras had sought to woo voters again by campaigning on cost of living issues.

But wary of his record, voters gave his party less than 18 percent of the vote, while Mitsotakis scooped over 40 percent.

"There are times when crucial decisions have to be taken," an emotional Tsipras told a press conference in Athens on Thursday, saying he would call "elections within Syriza for a new leader, in which I will not be a candidate".

Greece has moved on economically since its debt crisis years, having repaid the IMF earlier than expected in 2022 and exited EU close monitoring on its fiscal policies.

The country is now firmly in growth territory and no longer wishes to countenance a return to the time of job losses, businesses going under and soaring taxes.

Incidentally, another leading figure in the Greek crisis years, Yanis Varoufakis, failed to garner the required 3 percent to enter parliament.

Born in the suburbs of Athens in 1974, Tsipras had forged his firebrand image early in life, protesting as a teenager for students' right to skip school.

A fan of Che Guevara and hater of neckties, he subscribed to hard-left positions in his early political life.

He transformed the loose radical coalition Synaspismos into Syriza, and rose through the ranks of his party swiftly.

He became the secretary of its youth wing at 25, and party chief at 33.

By 2015, the atheist had become the youngest prime minister in 150 years to govern Greece, a revolution for a deeply religious country known for its political dynasties and where connections were crucial.

After his election on an anti-austerity ticket, he initially sought to bend creditors to his will.

But he would finally sign on to the tough reforms that the Greek population had rejected in a referendum in exchange for an 86-billion-euro package to keep the country afloat.

With his party's MPs quitting en masse following that decision, he called a new election which he scraped through weakened.

Nevertheless, he would during that term solve one of the world's longest lasting diplomatic rows by reaching a deal with his Macedonia counterpart to rename Greece's northern neighbor the Republic of North Macedonia.

The move had earned both leaders the nomination for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. But it proved a disaster for Tsipras domestically, sinking his coalition government and turning northern Greek voters against him.

A middle-class revolt against heavy taxation scuppered his bid for re-election in 2019, while in 2023, an economic revival may have consigned the icon of Greece's turbulent debt years to political history.



AFP