“The institutions want to annihilate the country and our people,” was the high-pitched statement uttered on Thursday by one top SYRIZA government minister who heads up the ruling party’s “internal opposition”.

Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis repeated to protothema.gr his standing triptych: “the country cannot tolerate more austerity; needs greater liquidity and a deep debt cut”.

Lafazanis and members of the Left Platform, the virulently anti-capitalist and Marxist-oriented grouping within SYRIZA, have expressed heightened concern over the frustrated state of negotiations between Athens and its institutional creditors. The far-left within leftist SYRIZA is also sharply opposed to the taking of harsh measures recently proposed to creditors.
According to most veteran political watchers in Athens, especially those surveying the left, SYRIZA’s hardliners are waiting for a conclusion to negotiations to see what decisions deal with the debt and whether a “growth package” will be available, before expressing a position on a possible compromise.