24/7/2019 Has Greece found the formula for defeating populism?

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Has Greece found the formula for defeating populism?

By Aristides N. Hatzis
July 16

Aristides N. Hatzis is a professor of law, philosophy and economics at the University of Athens. He also
serves as Director of Research at the Center for Liberal Studies in Athens.

Greece has a new prime minister. Kyriakos Mitsotakis took office immediately after leading his conservative
New Democracy party to a landslide victory in the country’s general election on July 7. His dramatic victory
ended 4½ of government by Alexis Tsipras and his far-left Syriza party. And that’s why the significance of
this election extends well beyond Greece: Mitsotakis has shown how a traditionally oriented party can take
on populists — and defeat them.

Syriza’s left-wing populism was based mostly on anti-market bias, a bit of technophobia and a strong
measure of social envy. This kind of populism can be defeated relatively easily in liberal democracies —
simply because the numbers don’t add up. That leaves a government of the type led by Syriza with two
options: it can either succumb to its own anti-establishment paranoia or opt for pragmatism. Tsipras
ultimately tried both, neither very convincingly. The voters didn’t appreciate the blatant contradiction and
grew impatient with the anemic growth. In the end, they abandoned him for Mitsotakis, the quintessential
anti-populist.

The first blow to Tsipras came after an ill-advised referendum in 2015 when Greek voters, reeling from the
country’s financial crisis, had the chance to take a stand on a proposed European Union bailout package.
(Sixty-one percent voted “no.”) Tsipras’s plans failed miserably, and the episode transformed the prime
minister from a radical naysayer into a compliant enforcer of the E.U.'s tough conditions. He ended up
resorting to a left-wing populist ploy: hitting the middle class with tax increases to offer handouts to groups
he groomed as his core supporters. This small-scale redistribution was not as successful as he hoped. The
fierce backlash from middle-class voters led to his eventual demise.

Mitsotakis is often regarded as the scion of a powerful political dynasty. This is half true. His family was
always an outlier among conservatives. His father, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, a convinced pro-market liberal,
became leader of the New Democracy party in 1984 and was prime minister for 3½ years (1990-1993)
without managing to control or change it. His government fell mostly because of its internal contradictions.
His older sister, Dora Bakoyanni, another staunch reformist, failed to win the leadership of the party in
2009. She was beaten by a conservative, Antonis Samaras, whose party was responsible for her father’s
downfall 16 years before.
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 24/7/2019 Has Greece found the formula for defeating populism? - The Washington Post
Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself was the outsider in the party elections in January 2016. The previous year was
devastating for the conservatives. They had lost two national elections and, even more crushingly, the
referendum. Mitsotakis was elected as leader because the mainstream party vote was divided and he
enjoyed unanimous support from independents, liberals, even leftists, who saw in him a challenger of
Tsipras. He represented the exact opposite of Tsipras in almost every respect, from his résumé to his
reformist agenda.

So, the question was simple. Could he beat Tsipras? Shouldn’t a Harvard-educated, market-friendly liberal
be easy prey for a shrewd and ruthless opponent? Even though he managed to outrace Tsipras in polls from
very early on, most people regarded this as a mirage. Tsipras seemed invincible.

The most difficult task for Mitsotakis was finding the balance between his own liberal reformist soul and the
official ideology of his party. New Democracy is more conservative than most other European political
groupings of its type, incorporating strong strains of nationalism, anti-market bias and traditionalism. He
had to make some concessions to maintain support from the conservative core of the party. He rejected the
separation of church and state, and he didn’t support Syriza’s progressive agenda on LGBT rights, or the
recent compromise with North Macedonia that defused a long-smoldering dispute between the two
countries.

Making pragmatic concessions, modifying your liberal credo, and adjusting to people who normally are not
your preferred bedfellows — it all hints at a formula for defeating populism by co-opting some parts of of its
arsenal.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis managed to achieve, almost single-handedly, the first major victory against populism in
Europe. But the image of his government, with only five women among 51 ministerial positions, taking the
oath of office in front of black-robed, long-bearded Orthodox priests, sent confusing signals to Greek
society. Who is the real winner? The liberal Mitsotakis or the conservative elements of his party?

Yet this may be losing sight of the fundamental issue. His government, with an unprecedented number of
technocrats, is well-prepared and ready to take on the task of implementing pro-market structural reforms.
Most importantly, he seems determined to dominate the New Democracy party, not the other way around.
The real question is whether he actually found the formula for defeating populism: stick to your principles
without alienating yourself from popular sentiment. Other European leaders might learn from his example.

Read more:

The Post’s View: European democracy began in Greece. Thanks to its voters, it won’t die there.
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