The hard years for the Left (persecutions, imprisonments, exiles, executions etc) ended in 1989 with an unexpected government alliance. New Democracy and the Communist Party formed the Tzannetakis government in order to prevent the lapse of the “PASOK scandals”.
That was an opportunity for the Left, which instead of benefiting, left it the stain of the “dirty 1989”.
Another great opportunity for the legitimization of the Left in the eyes of the great majority of the people was lost in the summer of 1965. The leadership of EDA at the time, which housed the leaders of the illegal Communist Party, denied the…royal offer: the apostates suggested to EDA’s MPs to give a vote of confidence to the Tsirimokos government in exchange for the repeal of emergency measures and the legalization of the communist party. The left MPs said “no” to the proposal, the apostasy led to the dictatorship, which ended in 1974, when the Left (namely the Communist Party) entered Parliament.
Since the restoration of Democracy the Left has tried to cooperate politically and electorally with centrist parties,m namely Andreas Papandreou’s PASOK, which was absorbing what was left of his father’s Centrist Union.
The response of PASOK’s leadership has always been negative, in line with Georgios Papandreou’s anti-communist slogan of a “two-front battle”.
Today history seems to be repeating itself, albeit in a reverse order. This time SYRIZA seems to have the electoral power. It seems that the Left will have the support that PASOK once had, while A. Papandreou’s party has plummeted.
The Left is aiming to form a government on its own and will be called upon to take advantage of the opportunity that it is being given.
Mr. Tsipras is optimistic. A journalist friend of his quipped a few days ago that “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”.
Stavros P. Psycharis
Originally published in the Sunday print edition
