Special to WorldTribune.com

By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs

The election in Greece on Jan. 25, of a radical-left Syriza (an acronym for the Coalition of the Radical Left: Synaspismós Rizospastikís Aristerás) government in Greece will have significant ramifications not only for European Union (EU) and eurozone stability, but will also figure significantly in determining the balance of power in the Ægean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean over the coming critical few years.

The relative political isolation which was Syriza’s objective for Greece within Europe will be coupled with such economic malaise that Greek defense spending will suffer at a time of growing restiveness and adventurism in Turkey.

It was difficult to assess by Jan. 26 — when Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his Syriza-dominated two-party coalition were sworn in — whether the Syriza Government would continue to develop Greece’s strategic, military, and energy relations with Israel, but there is no reason to suppose that this relationship would suffer. Perhaps, to the contrary, it will become more important as Athens’ relations become strained with the European Union.

Even so, Turkey is becoming less and less constrained by its NATO membership and essentially has abandoned its bid for EU membership (despite claims that it still sought membership). At the same time, Turkey has become more belligerent regionally, the point where it is expected, almost certainly, to raise its claims to Ægean Sea territories currently owned by Greece.

Greece will have little capacity to resist Turkey in this regard, and its only safeguard is the continued weakness of the Turkish military structure, the result of depredations of the Armed Forces by the ruling Turkish Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party: AKP) led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Given incoming Greek Prime Minister Tsipras’ insistence that Greece will renegotiate its debts to its three major lenders, the European Commission, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and European Central Bank (ECB), Athens seems set to lose much of its political support among the major European powers and the U.S. This will be particularly the case for the next two years, when Turkey’s main supporter, U.S. President Barack Obama, remains in office.

Greek voters went to the polls on Jan. 25, in parliamentary elections which seemed certain to elect the left-wing Syriza which promised to curtain Greece’s repayment of its debt. An estimation of the debt by the time of the election was as follows:

• Public debt: €316-billion, or 176 percent of gross domestic product, the highest within eurozone (as of end of Q3 2014);

• Public deficit: 0.8 percent percent of annual GDP (as of end of Q3 2014);

• Unemployment: 25.8 percent (Oct 2014);

• GDP (2013): €182-billion;

• Bailout loans: €240-billion.

The election favored the populist appeal of an end to recession, and Syriza handsomely defeated the outgoing New Democracy (ND), led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Syriza won 149 seats (up from 71 seats in the previous election), and ND won 76 (down from 129 seats in the previous election). Voter turnout was 63.9 percent of registered voters. Syriza needed 151 seats for an absolute majority in the 300-seat Parliament, but was expected to forge a coalition with one or more of the five other parties which won seats in the election. This is exactly what Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras did, aligning with the right-wing populist group, Independent Greeks, which won 13 seats, giving the new coalition 162 of the 300 seats.

Alexis Tsipras, 40, was then sworn in as Prime Minister at 16.00 hrs local on Jan. 26. Tsipras met on the morning of Jan. 26, with Athens Archbishop Ieronymos, but, in a break with tradition, was not sworn into office by the Archbishop, but by President Karolos Papoulias, highlighting Syriza’s — and Prime Minister Tsipras’ — secular nature in the overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox society. Syriza had stated its ideology variously as democratic socialism, eco-socialism, left-wing populism, and post-globalist.

  but warming ties with Israel may not be affected, Greece lurches left, WorldTribune.com