The way Greece’s new Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras, aged 40, lives may offer clues as to his popularity. He lives with his partner and two children in a beige-colored block of flats in the modest, working-class district of Kyspeli, Athens, at 4a Harmony Street. His seven-storey apartment block overlooks an empty lot full of rubbish and two abandoned cottages.
The walls of the streets where he lives are covered with graffiti scrawled with politically-tinged messages. The Acropolis is visible in the distant background.
Tsipras holding his second son Ernesto (named in honor of Che Guevara)
Tsipras’ neighborhood is fit for a man who has championed the rights of the poor and has been involved in Greece’s far-left since his school days. He was a student activist when still an engineering student at the National Technical University of Athens (Athens Polytechnic), but was drawn to politics full-time.
His casual manner has won him the support of everyman. Now, a breath away from being Greece’s next prime minister, his neighbors wonder if he’ll move somewhere smarter or will be changed by power.
So far, he has been seen as marching and standing with the people rather than close himself in an “ivory tower”. It is this lifestyle and a willingness to be part of society that has led to a growth in his popularity over the last three years. Rubbing shoulders with ordinary people, he has witnessed first-hand the effects of austerity measures. People wonder if he’ll be able to keep promises of defiance against the troika of Greece’s creditors that would be hard to keep. They are the promises that have resonated with Greek voters.
