In "The New York Times"

The Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL
The Politics of Desperation


By THE EDITORIAL BOARDAUG. 23, 2015

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If Greece’s European creditors think the resignation of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will improve their leverage over Athens, they best think again. First, there is no telling what the new wave of political tumult in the struggling nation will bring, and it is entirely possible that Mr. Tsipras will return as prime minister of a stronger coalition.

Endlessly lending Greece more money to pay off old debts helps neither Europe nor Greece, no matter who is running the country. As the International Monetary Fund has finally and publicly acknowledged, Greece can never repay its 300-billion-euro debt, and putting off a restructuring will only add to the agony of the Greeks, discord in the European Union and the likelihood of a Greek default.

Given that his scant seven months in office were one continuing crisis, it is hard to judge how good a prime minister Mr. Tsipras was or could have been. A hard-core leftist, he promised things he could never deliver, like abandoning the austerity regime that has pushed Greece into a depression. He tried everything to sway the creditors — brinkmanship, bombast and a snap referendum on July 5, in which 61.3 percent of Greeks voted to reject the terms of the latest bailout. None of that worked, and in the end Mr. Tsipras was forced to accept the latest terms.

The resulting defection of the radical wing of his Syriza party left Mr. Tsipras with no choice but to seek new elections. That is not easy in Greece, since other major parties must be given a chance to form a government after a prime minister resigns. But the current political arithmetic makes a new election, possibly as early as Sept. 20, all but inescapable.

For all his failings and failures, Mr. Tsipras remains the most popular political figure in Greece, because a large part of the population accepts that he did his best to improve Greece’s lot. How that plays out in elections is to be seen. The other major parties, New Democracy and Pasok, are in the midst of leadership struggles, and the breakaway faction of Syriza, now called Popular Unity, is small.

Whether Mr. Tsipras returns or not, the next government will have to do more to make the country more productive, and that includes many of the reforms European leaders have demanded — cutting pensions, streamlining regulations, privatizing state-owned businesses. But it is hard to see how even the most effective and popular government can do these things if the country remains trapped in a whirlpool of debt.


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