The Left wins big in Greece's election

Greece has just held elections for its Parliament, which also determines who the Prime Minister is.

Exit polls show, as predicted, a big win for the radical left, anti-austerity party, Syriza, and its leader -- and future prime minister -- 40 year old Alexis Tsipris.   As of this writing, results were still too close to determine whether Syriza's margin of victory would give them an absolute majority (151 seats of the 300 member parliament) or whether they might be one seat short and have to form an alliance with another party.

I don't know the internal politics enough to evaluate the fine points of this;  but it seems clear that the severe austerity program, forced upon Greece by the European Union in exchange for bailing it out of its financial collapse, did not work.   

Tsipris and his party hope to renegotiate the terms of the bailout and embark on a program of economic stimulus, which I think experience both in Europe and the U.S. proves to be what was needed in this recent recession.

Stay tuned.   It will be interesting to follow Greece's experience as they try to bail out of the bail-out and try something different from austerity.

Ralph