SYRIZA: The rise and fall of the cult left-wing party in Europe - Reflections on the right wing
SYRIZA: The rise and fall of the cult left-wing party in Europe - Reflections on the right wing

Author(s): Tomi Dimitrovski
Subject(s): Politics, Government/Political systems, Sociology of Politics
Published by: Mednarodni inštitut za bližnjevzhodne in balkanske študije IFIMES
Keywords: Syriza; Greece; politics; leftist movement;
Summary/Abstract: The foundation of the leftist movement in Greece is the SYNASPISMOS coalition, which was established in 1991. SYNASPISMOS was also one of the founders of the Party of the European Left (PEL) in Rome in 2004. In Greece, the successor of SYNASPISMOS is the radical-left coalition named SYRIZA, which is actually the syllabic abbreviation of the full name of the coalition in Greek. SYRIZA was established in 2004 by several leftist and extreme-left parties. The first president of SYRIZA was Alekos Alavanos (1950). He is a moderate left-wing politician and was the party leader until 2008. These years were filled with numerous tensions between the coalition partners and marked by modest results at parliamentary and local elections. Many in Greece associated these two parties with anarchist groups, which frequently caused unrests in Greece.

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