Can Syriza survive austerity?

Newly approved austerity measures lead to Syriza defections, jeopardising Tsipras' position.

Athens, Greece - As details of Greece's new deal with creditors emerged earlier this week, many Greeks felt that they had "handed the keys to the country over to the Germans," as radio journalist Yiorgos Trangas summarised.

Yet by early Thursday, July 16, the deal with its accompanying new austerity measures had been passed in a stormy session of parliament by a majority of 229 deputies in the 300-seat legislature, stretching across five parties in both the ruling coalition and the opposition. 

The passage of the bill unlocks the process of approval for an 86bn euro ($94bn) third financial aid package for Greece, but has crippled the ruling left-wing Syriza party with 39 defections - almost a third of its members of parliament - leaving the party deeply divided.

"We can't have a government with two majorities," said opposition socialist lawmaker Evangelos Venizelos.

"We have an anti-austerity majority for the 'good' and 'innocent' bills and a majority which bears the national responsibility for the 'difficult' ones," Venizelos said. 

Scheauble hadn't intended to humiliate Greece. Greece humiliated herself by being totally unreliable and irresponsible. Alexandros Ioannidis, psychologist

Even Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who negotiated the deal in a marathon, 17-hour session in Brussels, was uncharacteristically apologetic.

"I'm not going to tell the Greek people that I shall come bearing a success story," he said in a nationally-televised interview on Tuesday.

"This policy is not helpful to us, but we shall do what we can. People need to understand the alternatives. We reached the end. One alternative was what I did … the second was disorderly default and the third was consensual exodus from the euro," said Tsipras.

Tsipras has said he was "blackmailed" into accepting the deal. This stance has raised serious questions about whether Syriza intends to implement the bill.

"We need the prime minister to tell us if his government will undertake the responsibility of this bill and the execution of all that it contains," Venizelos said.

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