"Only in horror films do we see such sadistic scenes such as the one last July 13 in Brussels, when the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras --crestfallen, wounded, beaten, and humiliated-- had to abide in public by the dictate of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, thereby giving up his program of liberation; a program for which he had been chosen and which had just been approved by his people in a referendum."

Thus, with his renowned genius, the intellectual and French journalist Ignacio Ramonet described the sad event of the obvious political castration of the man who sowed so many hopes for a revival of national dignity, not only in Greece but throughout Europe.

Tsipras and his political party, Syriza, launched an intense campaign that had promised to lead the Greeks to recover their sovereignty by means of an anti-neoliberal alternative project in opposition to austerity and contrary to the policy of cuts. They submitted the program to citizen consideration, received wide acceptance, and won the election. Then they obtained maximum legitimacy for their political project when Tsipras became the Prime Minister in January 2015.

Only the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), historically a very vigorous force in the political landscape of the Greek nation, had warned well in advance against Tsipras’ program.

"Syriza is an opportunistic party that describes itself as leftist; but it has become the social democratic party elected by the bourgeoisie to manage the crisis and prevent the implementation of policies favorable for the people,” the KKE warned repeatedly, swimming against the current of huge popular support for Tsipras’ campaign.”

"During his short period of rule --in coalition with the Nationalist Party of Independent Greeks (Anel)-- Syriza not only did not abolish the two previous memoranda (agreements) with the country's three main creditors (EU, IMF and the European Central Bank) or most of the 400 unpopular laws of former governments, but implemented them. Furthermore, they adopted in Parliament an even more painful agreement with the imperialist powers."

"During the few months he exercised power, his government, calling itself the “patriotic-left”, operated firmly within the framework of the country's participation in the imperialist unions of NATO, the European Union and the strategic alliance with the US. It has taken part in all NATO missions and exercises; organized military exercises even with Israel; promised the creation of a new US-NATO base (on the island of Karpathos); and voted at the European Union for the broadening and strengthening of the trade war against Russia," said the KKE.

According to information released by the KKE Central Committee International Relations Sectopm, the General Secretary of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, said that to understand the political situation in Greece it is necessary to know some data about the history of the Syriza phenomenon:

"Syriza was established as a unification of different forces that had moved away from the KKE in the nineties, influenced by Gorbachev's ideas, after having tried, without success, the social democratization and organizational self-dissolution of the KKE.”

"They were forces that had gathered earlier, in 1968, influenced by the Euro-communist trend.”

"Its fundamental core was called Synaspismos (SYN), always with a reformist social-democratic program.”

"From the beginning of the 21st Century, with the conversion of SYN into Syriza, its program dressed up as radical and anti-establishment. This was strengthened after 2010, with the outbreak of the capitalist economic crisis.”

“The signing of the unpopular memoranda (agreements) by the governments of PASOK and ND with the imperialist organizations (EU, IMF, ECB), accompanied by harsh unpopular measures, led Syriza to the adoption of an anti-memoranda line.”

“Simultaneously, a precipitous crumbling of the social democratic party PASOK led to the absorption of several of its leaders by Syriza.”

"During the six months of Anel-Syriza government, the Greek people were faced with a third memorandum containing new anti-worker and anti-popular measures."

Former Prime Minister Tsipras, after resigning on 20th August, called for new elections to be held on 20th September. He participated as a candidate "to finish what was started seven months before” and was now confronted by a new leftist party called Popular Unity, formed by deputies who had abandoned Syriza.

The latest polls positioned Alexis Tsipras as a favorite in the pre- election voting polls with a very narrow margin over the conservative New Democracy party.

September 2, 2015.

- Manuel E. Yepe http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.