Abstract

When Alexis Tsipras went to vote on June 17, 2012, television channels from all over the world gathered around the school auditorium where he was casting his ballot. Someone unfamiliar with Greek politics might have supposed that this blaze of publicity was focused on a rock star or world leader. Who, after all, was Alexis Tsipras? As the head of the parliamentary group of SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), he had led a motley confederation of small leftist parties to an underwhelming 4.6 percent of the vote in the 2009 elections. That same year, his position as informal leader had been vehemently challenged even within the coalition.

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