By
Richard Schwartz
1 min read
By
Richard Schwartz
The left-wing, anti-austerity Syriza party's victory in last Sunday's general election in Greece did not come as a great surprise.
But its scale - two seats short of an absolute majority in parliament - exceeded pollsters' expectations and left most other political groups on both the left and right downbeat.
The Jewish community officially welcomed the result. Moises Contantinis, president of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, congratulated Syriza and sent best wishes.
Speaking to the JC on the eve of the vote, Mr Contantinis pointed out that Jewish supporters were found among all the mainstream political parties.
His chief worry had been the likely performance of the neo-Nazi far-right Golden Dawn party. It eventually won 6.3 per cent of the vote and 17 seats in parliament despite the fact that several of its returning MPs are in prison, awaiting trial on criminal charges.
Another potential concern was the decision by new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to form a governing coalition with the small, far-right Independent Greeks (ANEL).
ANEL's leader, Panos Kammenos, has been made national defence minister. Mr Kammenos, a former cabinet minister, had made the bizarre accusation in a TV interview last month that Jews in Greece, along with Muslims and Buddhists, pay fewer taxes than Orthodox Greeks.
Tax avoidance is a serious political issue here, with evasion broadly seen as one cause of the country's economic woes.
Bilateral relations between Greece and Israel, which have warmed considerably during the last two Greek governments, may also cool.
Though a raft of ratified cooperation agreements is unlikely to be repudiated, the next political meeting on the defence pact between the two countries may be a little awkward to say the least.
A Greek Jewish blogger who goes by the pseudonym Abravanel described Syriza's success as "the unlikely result of five years of unprecedented austerity".
He said the country had suffered from "immense social hardships and a huge brain drain of its youngest and brightest".
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