All change in Greece: the beginning of the end for populism?

How reassuring to see Greece become a normal country again, said Le Monde (Paris). Since its government debt crisis exploded in 2009, we’ve been used to it “teetering over the abyss”. But harsh austerity measures – ruthlessly enforced by the same populist left-wingers who’d originally sworn to oppose them – brought it back from the brink; a third and final EU- and IMF-driven bailout programme ended last year. Now the Greeks have voted emphatically for the centre-right New Democracy party, handing a decent majority (40%) to its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis after a strikingly “moderate” campaign. The defeat of Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza party after four years in power was no surprise, but its respectable showing (31%) means it will form a strong opposition. Another plus was that the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn…

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The Week United Kingdom (Digital) - 1 Issue, V. 1236

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