Tsipras’ partner says that July 2015 referendum reneging still makes her cry

ATHENS – Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ partner Betty Baziana said the July 5 anniversary of his reneging on promises to reverse austerity as Greeks gave him a referendum mandate to do so upsets her to tears.

“I cry from anger every July 5,” was the way she described the anniversary of the 2015 vote that he called asking Greeks to back him in defying more brutal conditions he swore to reverse before he imposed even more.

Tsipras also went back on his word on virtually every promise he made, including to stop privatizations and foreclosures and help workers, pensioners and the poor, abandoning them to satisfy the Troika of the European Union-European Central Bank-European Stability Mechanism that put up a third bailout, this one for 86 billion euros ($103.46 billion) he said he would never seek nor accept but did both.

Despite that, Baziana, a computer science graduate and former teacher who was given a university teaching position, said in an interview with the left-wing Efimerida ton Syntakon that Tsipras “never lied, never backed down…but fought to face a harsh, unbending situation that emerged before him in an extremely threatening manner.”

Baziana, the mother of Tsipras’ two children and his long-time companion, was referring to the end of his first tumultuous six months in office that culminated with his closing banks for three weeks, imposing capital controls still in place and walking away from the referendum that saw Greeks support his alleged claims to reject austerity.

That has seen his popularity plummet to as low as 10 percent polls as he tries to reverse that with a flurry of holiday handouts to low-income pensioners and jobless youth he hasn’t put back to work as promised.

As has Tsipras and his Radical Left SYRIZA party, she blamed the tough stance of the lenders he said he would force to back down and that he would spread a Leftist revolution throughout Europe before surrendering, and then claiming credit for a recovery that, if coming, would be because of his reneging.

Speaking of him in the third person, she said that, “Tsipras, having asked the Greek people in the referendum, departed (for Brussels) to again negotiate with creditors, for a better agreement. He had with him a clear mandate for a fairer agreement, not a mandate for a clash or exit from Europe and the euro (zone),” although that was the way he himself had put it in urging voters to reject austerity.

Instead, said Baziana, “The question in the referendum was clear: ‘Do you agree with the proposal by the creditors?’ Propped up with the crystal clear ‘no’ by the Greek people, he returned with an agreement that was far removed from what he originally envisioned,” she admitted without explaining her own contradictions.

“…He made a compromise, not a humiliating one, however, but a compromise that he believed had a prospect: to finally lead to an end of the rule of the powerful (in Europe); an end to unreasonable austerity,” she added without adding that he didn’t end the rule of the powerful and added even more austerity than did the coalition he replaced and castigated for doing so, the New Democracy-led partnership with the then-PASOK Socialists.

Baziana said that the party “assumed the government (reins) but not (institutional) power,” an indication that stronger forces were at work and keeping him from doing whta he wants even as he said he can’t because he has no choice but to follow the creditors.

Baziana, a former Communist Youth leader like Tsipras, took a shot at private sector workers too, asking, “… How is it possible for private sector (employment or activity) to be considered meritorious; personal profit against the common good and justice?” She didn’t explain if that’s the case why Tsipras is furiously seeking private investors and businesses to hire people in a sector she said has no worth.

Critics were quick to dismiss her, with New Democracy spokeswoman, Sofia Zacharaki, saying that it was “too late for tears,” adding that the interview was deeply “offensive for Greek citizens, which were fooled by SYRIZA.”

A quip on social media by former Parliament president Zoe Konstantopoulou, who bolted from SYRIZA for an independent political course after the third memorandum was signed and approved by a Parliament majority, was even more scathing.

But the most brutal ridicule came from a former chief ally to Tsipras, Zoe Konstantopoulou, whom he made Parliament Speaker before they broke off when she kept castigating him for betraying party principles and bowing to the Troika, noting that Baziana, during the campaign before the January, 2015 elections said she would leave her partner if he ever signed a new bailout deal

“They brought forth a previously uncompromising leftist to speak … one who would separate from Tsipras if he signed a bailout,” Konstantopoulou snickered, referring to Baziana now being a photo prop for him and taking advantage to elevate herself,, saying that the Premier’s partner “now attends receptions and is made a professor in… China.”

“She must somehow repay the summary measures with which her husband is building her career,” Konstantopoulou charged.