Back in 2008, I was a passionate admirer of Barack Obama. First of all, he could deliver such wonderful soundbites in his speeches. And, secondly, he was an outsider to the Washington establishment of cronies and lobbyists. He had the power of the people behind him and I believed him when he promised to really change America. His acceptance speech in the evening of the election was the last time I could see the Obama of the campaign. From then on, he retreated behind closed doors; no more arousing speeches; no longer a revolution against the establishment. The President Obama seemed like another person from the Obama of the campaign.
I have not been a passionate admirer of Alexis Tsipras. However, I did, from the start in June 2012, like his beautiful soundbites. Of course I noticed that he could rally a lot of people behind him but I thought that most of them were the 'crazy ones'. At the outset of this election campaign, I thought the 'crazy ones' would commit such blunders that voters would get scared. Today, I know that 36% of voters cannot be crazy. And I know a few other things.
Tsipras, in his words and in his writings, has made a dramatic shift to the center in recent weeks. If this was only fake, then he is a great actor. SYRIZA's latest policy statementreminded me a bit of what George C. Marshall could have recommended for the reconstruction of Germany after WW2.
As I prepared a guest commentary for a Swiss online paper last evening, something began to dawn on me, and I had to sratch my head when I realized it. Much of what Tsipras has been saying in words and in writings in recents weeks is VERY similar to what I have been writing in this blog since the start. Some examples:
* Greece must drive the process of change and not the Troika.
* Greece must be the owner of the problem and of the solutions and not the follower of the Troika's commanded solutions.
* A National Economic Development Plan is needed and it is Greece who has to make it.
* The increase in tax revenues must come from those who never paid taxes and not from those who always paid them.
* All the parasites of the Greek system must get scared that someone will come along and stop their game.
* Etc.
A Greek economist who allegedly is a close adviser to Tsipras but whose name I didn't catch (his German was perfect!) summarized SYRIZA's policies last evening on Austrian TV. There was not anything which I would have disagreed with. There has been a massive shift in support for Tsipras and SYRIZA outside of Greece in the last days/weeks. A well-known Austrian economics professor called for a public demonstration in Vienna last evening to show support for SYRIZA. A feeling seems to develop, to an extent also in Germany, that any decent human being simply must support SYRIZA.
Despite all my agreements with Tsipras' recent words and writings, why would I still hesitate to throw my support behind him? Here are a couple of reasons which come to mind off the bat:
* I am generally suspicious of rapid changes from Saulus to Paulus.
* While I could buy that Tsipras has changed from Saulus to Paulus, I cannot imagine that his voters and future parliamentarians can also make that change.
* When someone after over 30 years of experience with an exploding public sector still thinks that the public sector is part of the solution and not part of the problem, then I scratch my head.
* Everything I have written about concerned the private sector and private enterprise in general. I have not heard much from Tsipras about the private sector and private enterprise.
* I have almost become obsessesd with the idea that foreign investment is part of the solution for Greece. I have not heard much from Tsipras about foreign investment.
* I have always expressed surprise about Greek corruption and cronyism when, in day-to-day life, I would meet Greeks who are decent human beings with high ethical and moral standards. Still, I find it hard to believe that the SYRIZA leadership and upper ranks consist only of Greeks of high ethical and moral standards and none of the parasites. Something tells me that many of them have been parasites of the Greek system just like so many others.
* Etc.
I generally prefer to see the glass half full instead of half empty. So let me say that Tsipras' glass is half full. But it is still far away from becoming full and it could become empty again very quickly. As Nick Malkoutzis formulated it in this outstanding commentary in Macropolis:
“The thinking goes that if the people are visibly on SYRIZA’s side its bargaining position will be impregnable. This is the dream, at least. The nightmare is that people will be on the streets protesting because of the failure of a SYRIZA government to reach an agreement with Greece’s lenders, leading to the European Central Bank putting a stop to liquidity. It is a scenario in neither side’s interests but that does not mean it cannot happen”.