When the bubble bursts

Those who believe the Tsipras phenomenon is a flash in the pan are wrong. The upswing of his leftist SYRIZA party and the summer referendum show that populism is king and it expresses the anger and desperation of a large part of society. The moment will come when it will become apparent that all the promises the prime minister made and expectations he nurtured among this country’s young people and its most vulnerable citizens will not be realized. Unless we witness some kind of miraculous transformation in Tsipras, growth will not be quick in coming. It is when this bubble bursts that we will need a strong opposition with a convincing narrative and the right leader and officials to convince Greeks that there is another way. This role lies with the center-right, and to fulfill it, it must not shy away from ideological confrontations, new faces and a break from the mechanisms of the past. It is high time that it started behaving like its European peers.