Before joining them, I sat down to write two blog posts, one message of thanks (in Greek) to my voters and one message of hope (in English) to the wider world. In the first I wrote of my recent meeting with Lambros. ‘As I enter the gates of the Ministry of Finance,’ I wrote, ‘I shall be thinking of his words. Not our interest rate spreads, not the Treasury bill yields, not the Memorandum of Understanding with the troika. Only his words will be on my mind.’ For non-Greek speakers puzzled by our victory, I borrowed from Dylan Thomas to post the following.
Today, the people of Greece gave a vote of confidence to hope. They used the ballot box, in this splendid celebration of democracy, to put an end to a self-reinforcing crisis that produces indignity in Greece and feeds Europe’s darkest forces.
The people of Greece today sent a message of solidarity to the north, to the south, to the east and to the west of our continent. The simple message is that the time for crisis-denial, retribution and finger-pointing is over. That the time for the reinvigoration of the ideals of freedom, rationality, democratic process and justice has come to the continent that invented them.
Greek democracy today chose to stop going gently into the night. Greek democracy resolved to rage against the dying of the light.
Fresh from receiving our democratic mandate, we call upon the people of Europe and, indeed, the world over, to join us in a realm of shared, sustainable prosperity.
I am often asked how I dealt with the overwhelming stress of the days and months that followed. My answer is that on 9 January, the day I announced my candidature for a Greater Athens parliamentary seat, I had written a signed but undated letter of resignation. On my blog I wrote,
It was never my intention to enter the electoral game. Ever since the crisis began, I entertained hopes of maintaining an open dialogue with reasonable politicians from different political parties. Alas, the bailouts made such an open dialogue impossible … My greatest fear, now that I have tossed my hat in the ring, is that I may turn into a politician. As an antidote to that virus I intend to write my resignation letter and keep it in my inside pocket, ready to submit it the moment I sense signs of losing the commitment to speak truth to power.
On 25 January, before Danae and I left our apartment to join the celebrating crowds and make our way to Syriza HQ, I made sure that I had that letter in my inside pocket. From that Sunday night onwards I carried it with me everywhere I went, from meetings at Maximos or the finance ministry to the Eurogroup and Wolfgang Schäuble’s office. Its presence gave me solace and a sense of freedom. But like all freedoms, it came at a price: the more astute of my adversaries recognized this freedom in me and detested me for it.
At 6 a.m. on Monday, with the count completed, I received a text message from my friend Wassily: ‘Unbelievable! You got 142,000 votes.’ But satisfaction at having won my seat with a comfortable majority quickly gave way to apprehension when I checked the full results: no Syriza candidate, indeed no candidate of any party, had received more votes in the whole of Greece. It was a success I knew I would eventually be punished for.
That morning Alexis was sworn in at the outgoing president’s residence before making his way to Maximos, where the departing prime minister would normally have been waiting for the handover ceremony. But as Antonis Samaras was not there, Alexis just walked in and got down to work; the cabinet had not yet been finalized, and the government was due to be sworn in the very next day.
Having resigned myself days before to the alliance with Kammenos and his Independent Greeks, my only intervention on cabinet appointments was insisting that the other two ministries covering key economic areas should be given to Euclid and Stathakis. While the main burden of negotiations in the Eurogroup would fall upon me, I was keen to have Euclid in the cabinet and in a ministry linked to economic policy so the two of us could back each other up in Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt.
Towards that evening, Sagias, who in the end accepted the position of secretary to the cabinet, called to discuss procedural matters. During our conversation he dropped a bombshell: Alexis had left Euclid out of the cabinet.
‘Why on earth…?’ I asked.
To preserve Syriza’s inner equilibrium, he explained, Alexis had appointed Panayiotis Lafazanis to the ministry instead. This was terrible. Like Dragasakis, Lafazanis had been an activist in the Communist Party of Greece for many years, but while Dragasakis had since shifted to the Right, Lafazanis remained wedded to a Soviet mindset and led the Left Platform, which controlled one-third of Syriza’s central committee. Crucially, Lafazanis and his supporters believed that Grexit should be party policy. Over and over again he had stated his view that if we did not threaten to leave the eurozone we would never achieve a decent deal. With Lafazanis in one of the key ministries, and with Euclid – who agreed with our covenant – outside the cabinet, my negotiation strategy was in jeopardy.
As soon as Sagias had put down the phone, I called Alexis to say that Lafazanis’s appointment was a mistake and that I could not accept Euclid’s exclusion from the cabinet. Alexis replied that he had offered Euclid a position as my deputy in charge of the tax office, but that he had turned it down angrily on the basis that he did not have the relevant expertise.
‘He spoke badly to me, Yanis. Sod him! Let him languish for a while in the house as Syriza’s parliamentary spokesperson.’
‘First, Euclid is right,’ I told Alexis. ‘Taxation policy is not his strong point. But in any case the reason for giving him the ministry now being run by Lafazanis was so that he could be at my side during the negotiations.’ If Euclid had responsibility for the tax office, he would be stuck in Athens while I travelled alone. ‘The two of us together, both ministers, will make a powerful team. This is a grave loss, Alexi,’ I said.
‘It is too late now,’ Alexis replied. ‘I need Lafazanis inside the cabinet and in an economic ministry to prevent him from pissing in from the outside. If I strip him of it now, on the night before our swearing-in, he will turn even more against me than he already is. The Left Platform will be up in arms.’
He had a point. I had to think of another way to get Euclid into cabinet.
‘There is an alternative,’ I said. Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs there was the post of general secretary of foreign economic relations. I suggested that we upgrade the post to alternate minister of foreign affairs responsible for foreign economic relations. Euclid could then come with me everywhere as a full minister with a portfolio closely related to the negotiations with Germany, the EU and the IMF. ‘What do you say?’ I asked.
‘Sounds OK. But will Euclid accept? When we spoke a few hours ago he swore at me and I responded in kind.’
‘Do I have your word that you will create such a position and appoint him to it if I secure his agreement?’ He gave me his word. ‘Leave it to me, Alexi.’
I immediately called Euclid. His voice conveyed sadness and anger. When I explained my solution he perked up but said, ‘But Yani, Alexis’s behaviour was atrocious. The way he took back his commitment, and for what? To put Lafazanis, a man who wants to blow up the negotiations before they start at the head of a critical economic ministry? I want nothing to do with him.’
I calmed him down somewhat by reminding him of the historic moment we were facing and with a kind word for Alexis, who after all had a difficult balancing act to perform.
‘I’m livid with him too,’ I continued, ‘but it’s time to find a solution.’ I explained that the new role being offered was perfect for a two-man ministerial caucus to run the negotiations. ‘Please accept it,’ I begged him.
‘But I can’t trust Alexis to appoint me to the position,’ he retorted.
‘Well then, trust me. Do you?’
‘I do,’ he said.
Minutes later I called Sagias, and Euclid’s name was added to the cabinet to be sworn in the following morning.
* * *
The swearing-in ceremony took place at the presidential residence. Ministers, deputy ministers and junior ministers filed past the president and then divided into two groups, one large one small. The reason for such an early split in our ranks? We were the first Greek government in which most ministers declined to swear an oath on the Bible and opted instead for a secular affirmation of allegiance to the constitution. But since the Independent Greeks were determined to swear on the holy book, we took our oaths in two separate groups.
The ceremony lasted no more than an hour, the new ministers keen to go to their ministries for the handover ceremonies, but as my predecessor had requested a few more hours to clear his desk, I was in no hurry. When the president had retired to his quarters, Alexis suggested I drop into Maximos, located next to the presidential residence, for a chat before I made my way over to the Ministry of Finance building on Syntagma Square. To give Alexis time to get settled, I immersed myself in discussions with a couple of other ministers whose handovers had also been delayed and then walked across to the prime minister’s official residence. As I went in, the police stationed outside saluted as if I were General Patton. It was something I never, ever got used to.
Once inside, I took a moment to look around. For a building synonymous in Greece with power, it was smaller than I had imagined but tasteful in an Italianesque way. Making my way to the inner sanctum I walked past the prime minister’s secretaries’ office, where it was amusing to find our party workers, more used to the dingy surroundings of Syriza’s HQ and now looking decidedly out of place amid the splendour of Maximos.
‘You’ll get used to it, Eleni,’ I said to one of them.
‘Yes, Minister,’ she replied mockingly.
Upon entering Alexis’s new office, I looked at him and, taking my cue from Eleni, bowed my head with a mock-humble ‘Prime Minister…’ We both burst out laughing. He rose from his chair and we embraced. ‘What the hell have we done?’ I asked, still laughing. ‘What next?’ I added more as a lament than a question.
He did not reply but grinned and shook his head. ‘We asked for it.’
My wandering eyes alighted on a huge and hideous painting of the Greek flag hanging over the prime minister’s desk. It succeeded in making a flag that I am actually very fond of look ugly and domineering, suggesting the very opposite of the nuanced patriotism it is meant to symbolize.
‘Either that goes or I go,’ I told Alexis.
‘Don’t worry. It goes. It’s awful,’ he replied.
