Greece V - Alexis is the youngest, most handsome and successful PM in Europe

[dalThor]

Depending on the outcome smart tactical play.

 

Tsipras hopes for two things.

 

A Split of Syriza and getting reelected after the split.

After that he can rule with his Syriza without having to deal with Zoi Konstantopoulou  and Lafazanis (and Varoufakis? and whoever joins them).

 

Syriza 1 with Tsipras will probably run with something like: "We tried our best, but we were beaten. I am not fond of the reforms, but we have to play along."

 

Syriza 2 with Konstantopoulou and co. will again run with "No, to austerity!" So basically the pure undiluted Syriza (Tea Party Syriza if you allow me this tongue in cheek comparison.)

 

I guess that's what he is aiming for. At the moment he can only rule with the help of the opposition, so he is not in a particularly strong position. And if I am not mistaken he still has relatively high approval ratings. So the odds of the reelection strengthening his position significantly are not that bad.

 

Our Greek posters probably will have a better insight and can predict better how things will work out, but from the outside that pretty much appears the situation and the idea behind Tsipras announcing reelection.  If that works out, Tsipras has pulled off a brilliant political play.

 

I am more curious what happens, if Syriza does not split, and this whole thing blows up straight into his face. He can't rule against his own party forever. 

It's really too early to trust any of the polls but here are the results from one out today:
SYRIZA 25% (As leading party they'll get a 50 seat bonus in parliament but it won't get them an outright majority)
New Democracy 22%
(Our nice friends at) Golden Dawn 5.5% Note: This could turn out higher as some won't say they're voting for them.
Potami (The River) 6%
KKE (Communist Party) 6%
ANEL (Independent Greeks, current coalition partner from the right) 2% <-- Below the 3% threshold to stay in parliament.

PASOK 4.5% (That's up, some polls have shown them below the 3% mark.)
LAE (Popular Union Party,those that left SYRIZA) 5%

EK (Union of the Center) 4.5%

Other parties 4%

Don't know/Didn't answer 14.5%
Don't plan on voting 11%
Poll results in Greek

Zoi hasn't said that she'll be joining the former SYRIZA members in their new party, it was rumored that she'd start a third party but I haven't seen anything about it.  Good ol' Yanni is leaving with the intent to form a European-wide, er, anti-European movement.  
Yanni

[Arataniello]

The first thing that jumps out from that poll (I agree it's probably too early to trust any such poll) is that a whopping quarter of the electorate either 'Don't know' or 'Don't plan to vote'.  

 

After this length of time being in the shitter, you would imagine that any citizen would either know which way they want to vote or care enough to vote.  I hope the 25.5% above is not replicated on polling day.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Going by this poll numbers, it looks like the only stable majority would be a SYRIZA-Nea Demokratia coalition. Unless the involved parties are determined to run elections ad infinitum. The 25% of undecided/undeclared voters could possibly change the dynamics quite a bit and break a dead lock, assuming Golden Dawn does not pick up a lion's share of those. If they pick up too many of those votes, that would more or less force SYRIZA and Nea Demokratia's hand to cooperate.

 

I am somewhat curious of what Konstantopoulou will be doing. That she won't stay with Tispras, that looks like a fairly safe bet. But I really can't see what kind of political position she could offer with a third party, that is not covered by the LAE. If her party could not add anything new, she would basically be just competing over those ~5% with Lafazanis and possibly keep both new parties below the 3% threshold. That would not make a whole lot of sense from a strategical point of view.

[dalThor]

After this length of time being in the shitter, you would imagine that any citizen would either know which way they want to vote or care enough to vote.  I hope the 25.5% above is not replicated on polling day.

Were I able to (I'm not a citizen), I have no idea whom I'd vote for.  SYRIZA, ND and PASOK have all screwed the pooch.  SYRIZA has, in my opinion, shown itself unable to govern and, while I would politically align more closely with the other two, they got Greece into the mess in the first place.

Who does that leave?  GD and nationalist ANEL on the right and, KKE and SYRIZA the Crazy on the left.  As Mash said earlier today at the in-laws, the only reason to vote is to make sure GD doesn't get a larger percentage.  Were I forced to choose I'd suppose I'd have to go with Potami because I wouldn't want to reward any of the other parties.  Frankly, I don't blame those not interested enough to vote because, absent a Grexit, the course has already been set.


Notone, I've no idea what Zoi is thinking, that's difficult to do on even a good day.  She has unfortunately become kind of a laughingstock at this point.  Is is unlikely that she'll split at this point because, as you pointed out, there just isn't any more support to be distributed.  I doubt GD will pick up a lot of the undecideds.  Even with bad polling I don't think it's possible for them to pick up more than a couple percentage points - at least I hope so.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, I am too far away to know how she managed to become the laughing stock at this point.

 

I could think of something why she would have never been electable to any important office in the first place. Didn't her mother collect child support for her until the crisis started and Zoi herself was well into her thirties at this point.

If I recall her response to that correctly it was not: "I am sorry, and I'd also like to apologize on behalt of of family to the Greek people" or any sort of self-criticism, that this sort of behavior at least contributed to problems the Greek state is having. Nope. Her response was if I recall it correctly, she more or less shrugging her shoulders and saying: "That's the way the system worked." That in combination with a long time membership in PASOK kinda screams out to me. "Everything was good, and the good times will come back." But that's all been known for quite a while.

And politically, I would think she seems way better placed at LAE than with Tsipras. Afterall she fought tooth to nail to stop/prevent the vote on the deal, Tsipras returned home with, to take place. 

So it would seem to me, that her staying with Tsipras would make the least sense of all options. Unless she wants to challenge him over the party leadership, which she would probably lose.