{"id":3764,"date":"2026-05-03T18:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T15:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=3764"},"modified":"2026-05-03T18:12:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T15:12:00","slug":"alexis-tsipras-the-thief-of-the-left-returns-as-its-saviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=3764","title":{"rendered":"Alexis Tsipras: the thief of the Left returns as its saviour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <b>Alexis Tsipras<\/b> is not a politician who was simply judged. He is a politician who was judged severely, repeatedly and over time by society itself. <\/p>\n<p><b>Political memory in Greece is short. <\/b>And some people are investing in just that. In amnesia, in confusion, in the need for an easy narrative that <b>will wash away the past and baptize failure&#8230; a new beginning.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>A prime minister who promised everything &#8211;<b>&#8220;tearing up memoranda with one law&#8221;, abolishing austerity, restoring injustice &#8211; <\/b>and ended up implementing the exact opposite. By signing, by laws, by policies that mostly burdened those he claimed he would protect. <\/p>\n<p><b>The retirees don&#8217;t forget. <\/b>Citizens who have seen incomes shrink do not forget. The EHIC that disappeared, the cuts that were dubbed &#8220;necessary&#8221;, <b>the banks that were finally closed<\/b> &#8211; not as a threat to &#8220;lenders&#8221; but as a reality for society &#8211; all these are not narratives. They are lived experiences.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, the same politician<\/b> returns today looking almost redemptive.<\/b> As if he hadn&#8217;t ruled. As if he had not been tested. As if he had not been judged. As if he did not resign, taking responsibility &#8211; however belatedly &#8211; for a course that has confirmed nothing of what he promised.<\/p>\n<p>There is, of course, an irony: <b>his resignation was then presented as an act of political responsibility.<\/b> Today, his reappearance seems to cancel even that. For if there was indeed a sincere self-criticism, if failure was indeed acknowledged, then what political capital does he return with? <b>With what credibility does he again claim a leadership role?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Politics is not a theatre of role-reversal. <\/b>It is not a cycle where the protagonist leaves, only to return as a &#8220;saviour&#8221;. It is a field of responsibility and consistency. And when you have identified with promises that have been so resoundingly broken, the return is not self-evident &#8211; <b>it is a challenge.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Especially when it is accompanied by the narrative of &#8220;unity of the progressive party&#8221;. Because unity is not built on silences. It is not built on oblivion. And it certainly <b>isn&#8217;t built on individuals who carry such a heavy political legacy,<\/b> no matter how much they attempt to reframe it.<\/p>\n<p>The <b>Novartis scandal, <\/b>the toxic political climate of that period, was not just an episode. It was part of an overall way of doing politics: conflict, polarisation, making enemies. And that <b>is not erased by a new rhetoric of &#8220;synthesis.&#8221;<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The question, then, is not whether a politician is entitled to return. The question is whether society is convinced that he has changed. And more importantly <b>whether it can trust again someone who has been tested at the pinnacle of power and failed<\/b> to live up to his own commitments.<\/p>\n<p>Because at the end of the day, politics is not judged by intentions or words. It is judged by the footprint. And <b>Tsipras&#8217;s footprint is not the one he describes today.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It is what the citizens have experienced. And that <b>is not being rewritten.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexis Tsipras is not a politician who was simply judged. He is a politician who has been judged strictly, repeatedly and over time by the same &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}