First ad: For the January 25 elections

Right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL) leader Panos Kammenos finds a young boy, Alexis, at a toy store. He shows him how to operate a toy train without derailing it… The train is symbolic of Greece. After learning how to operate the toy, young Alexis tells him that he is useful and good. The young boy’s mother tells her son to stop playing and ‘move on’.

After the ad: The ad proved prophetic as the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras chose ANEL, the sixth party in Parliament, to become a junior coalition member despite being polar opposites on a number of issues.

Second ad: For the September 21 elections

Seven months later, Kammenos escorts the young boy from the first ad to hospital – probably private bearing in mind there aren’t hospital beds in the corridors. He waits for little Alexis, who has broken his left arm (a reference to the split of anti-bailout hardliners from SYRIZA). Nobody knows why his mother trusted him to the man in the toy store or why he is alone at the doctors without anyone to comfort him. The boy comes out with a huge smile and his left arm in a cast and Kammenos promises to teach him to use his right arm.

The radical left SYRIZA party will be called to impose the harshest bailout terms yet, that include further education and welfare cuts and raising the retirement age… hardly the leftist policies that it championed in January. Just like little Alexis, the leftist leader Alexis Tsipras will need to start looking to the right. After a summer of hobnobbing with members on the Lagarde list and deciding to send his kids off to exclusive schools at a time when the state education system is in shambles is a step in the “right” direction.

Shortly after his victory, the SYRIZA leader had phone contact with Independent Greeks leader Panos Kammenos on the formation of a government… He may have said, “Hi there, Panos. The time has come for me to learn how to use my right arm…”