{"id":182435,"date":"2015-09-21T20:24:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T01:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/09\/21\/elections-is-weird\/"},"modified":"2015-09-21T20:24:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T01:24:00","slug":"elections-is-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/09\/21\/elections-is-weird\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections is Weird"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow, after completely failing to deliver on its promises, and folding like a bunch of overcooked broccoli, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/sep\/21\/alexis-tsipras-greek-election-syriza-election-triumph\">Syriza still managed to emerge from the latest Greek elections the conclusive winner<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Alexis Tsipras will be sworn in as Greece\u2019s prime minister later on Monday and his new government formally announced on Tuesday, <a href=\"http:\/\/greece.greekreporter.com\/2015\/09\/21\/new-greek-prime-minister-alexis-tsipras-to-be-sworn-in-monday\/\">Greek media said<\/a>, after the leftist Syriza leader <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/sep\/20\/syriza-set-to-return-to-power-in-greek-general-election\">romped to an unexpectedly convincing election victory<\/a>.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The result on Sunday was a personal triumph for the 41-year-old, who gambled on the snap poll last month to see off a revolt by party radicals over his U-turn on accepting more tough austerity measures in exchange for Greece\u2019s third international bailout.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The premier-elect will now make renegotiating the terms of Greece\u2019s debt mountain a top priority. He will attempt to build a broad consensus among the parties he defeated so as to strengthen his hand in talks with the country\u2019s eurozone creditors, a senior <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/syriza\">Syriza<\/a> source told Reuters. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Following a campaign that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/sep\/18\/tired-voters-weigh-up-options-as-greece-goes-once-more-unto-the-ballot-boxes\">for weeks looked too close to call<\/a>, Syriza won 35.5% of the vote \u2013 a fraction less than its previous total \u2013 against 28.1% for the centre-right opposition, New Democracy, giving the leftist party 145 seats in the 300-seat parliament.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Tsipras said he would renew his coalition with the small nationalist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2015\/jan\/26\/greece-elections-who-are-independent-greeks\">Independent Greeks party<\/a> to give him the 151-seat majority he needs in parliament. The new government\u2019s programme will be dictated by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2015\/jul\/13\/greece-bailout-agreement-key-points-grexit\">punishing terms of Greece\u2019s latest \u20ac86bn rescue package<\/a>, which demands a radical overhaul of the country\u2019s ailing economy and far-reaching changes to tax, welfare and pension systems. The cash-for-reforms deal is subject to quarterly reviews, with the first due next month. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I am thoroughly flummoxed by these results.<\/p>\n<p>My guess as to the meaning of all this is that, &#8220;The whippings will continue until morale improves.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Somehow, after completely failing to deliver on its promises, and folding like a bunch of overcooked broccoli, Syriza still managed to emerge from the latest Greek elections the conclusive winner: Alexis Tsipras will be sworn in as Greece\u2019s prime minister later on Monday and his new government formally announced on Tuesday, Greek media said, after &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1080,1000,984,1110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-currency","category-elections","category-europe","category-european-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}