After winning a landslide victory in the Greek elections in January 2015, the Syriza party debated its life away for months to discuss deals with its creditors and the Greek parliament, only to call new snap elections less than nine months after the elections.
The left-wing party has tried to secure a deal for the indebted country but it could not keep its promises to abolish austerity while trying to find a solution for Greeces staggering debt.
The situation in Greece has caused international uproar, led by organisations such as the Greece Solidarity Campaign in the UK. Isidoros Diakides, the co-chair of the campaign, told IBTimes UK he thought former Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and his party offered hope for the Greek people.
A lot of people decided that someone needed to fight back, he said. They did not have any illusions, I can assure you, that fight would be easy against the big interest involved, nor that there was any guarantee that they could win.
Diakides said that Syriza stood up for the demands of the Greek people after years of living in austerity under right-wing governments. Although snap elections have been called for 20 September, Syriza still wants to fight, despite a split in the party.
On 20 August, after debates in the Greek parliament as well as in the parliaments of several Eurozone countries, the government received a €86bn bailout package. A proportion of this had to be sent to the European Central Bank, as repayment for a long-standing loan.
The day after the deal was signed, Alexis Tsipras announced his resignation, which caused people to fear that the implementation of the bailout package was at risk.
The package that has been agreed is not the package that will help Greece in the end, the Greek councillor said. It is simply buying time. He argued that the deal was only adding to the countrys debt, and hurting the Greek economy in the long run.
While Greeces debt is still more than 177% of its GDP and a quarter of its population are still unemployed, the country is still in crisis and the Greek people still have some tough times ahead.
The vast majority of the people are satisfied that a fight has been fought until now, but they are still disappointed with ... the conclusion until now, and most of them just want a bit of stability, at least until now.
