Man likely to become Greece’s youngest prime minister appears determined to jolt not only his own country, but Europe too

Alexis Tsipras: the Syriza leader about to take charge in Greece

Will Alexis Tsipras ever wear a necktie? In the weeks before Sunday’s momentous election, that is the question that has been widely asked of the radical left Syriza leader, the winner of the Greek poll.

Invariably Tsipras has replied no, he won’t. “After all,” he has joked, “I didn’t wear one to see the pope.”

And therein lies the appeal of the man who is now Greece’s youngest prime minister – and the angst that prospect elicits.

At 40, the former communist party youth activist, student leader, self-avowed atheist and populist firebrand appears determined to jolt not only his own country but also Europe. Nonconformity is part of the package.

Others, say aides, will have to wake up to the reality that the radicals – for they wish to be called nothing else – will be doing things differently.

Under Syriza, Athens will challenge fundamentals: the politics of austerity, fiscal policies, how business is done.

With the eyes of the world media on him, Tsipras rammed home that message himself on Sunday after casting his vote in Athens.

“Our common future in Europe is not austerity, it is the future of democracy, solidarity and cooperation,” he announced.

“Today we are deciding whether the troika will return to Greece … or whether, through tough negotiation, the country will claim its return to dignity.”

In short: Athens’ creditors at the European Union, European Central Bank and IMF – the bodies propping up its bankrupt economy – should expect handshakes but, if necessary, punches too.

Greek politicians are unaccustomed to taking Europe by storm. And they are certainly not used to being seen as trailblazers capable of galvanising public opinion in the 28-nation bloc.

But, mixing chutzpah and charisma, Tsipras has managed to do both. From political unknown he has become the gadfly tormenting the big players in the EU.

“Merkelism,” he says, is in his sights. It is hard to overestimate the significance of this outcome for the left. Or Tsipras’s role in uniting groups that, famously, have remained fractured on the edge of political spectrum.

Deploying unrivalled communication skills, the telegenic Tsipras has allowed Syriza to speak for a whole sector of society that for decades was hounded and harassed by authoritarian rightwing rule.

In a nation still polarised by the fault lines of a bloody left-right civil war, both he and his alliance of Euro-communists, socialists, Maoists, Trotskyists and greens – since united into a single force – were only three years ago firmly relegated to the sidelines of Greek politics.

Outside the eclectic world of Syriza committee meetings, congresses and conventions, they were not a force to be reckoned with.

As Greece descended into economic crisis, there were almost no signs that the young ideologue, an ardent admirer of Ernesto “Che” Guevara – he named the youngest of his two sons after the Argentinian Marxist revolutionary – would emerge as the wild card to challenge Europe or Athens’ own dynastic politics and vested interests.

If anything, the leftist was considered limited and inexperienced, a reflection of his own insular upbringing as the son of a civil engineer who had never studied abroad or been taught a foreign language.

But Tsipras, perhaps more than any other Greek politician, has flourished on the back of crisis, his anti-austerity rhetoric and dexterity as a political operator becoming sharper by the day.

His determination to learn English – swotting from textbooks in his spare time – helped turn him into a polished performer and earned grudging respect from his greatest opponents.

“Although trapped in his own rhetoric, he is very good at deflecting criticism and often using it to his advantage,” says Dr Eleni Panagiotarea, a research fellow at Greece’s leading thinktank, Eliamep. “His electoral campaign has been slick and very media-savvy.”

Born four days after the collapse of military rule on 28 July, 1974, Tsipras was raised experiencing the ills that would blight Greek society: cronyism, corruption, the lack of a meritocracy.

Studying civil engineering himself, he ventured into politics partly out of frustration with a society that seemed so immutably rotten.

Emerging from the generation sickened by the grace and favour politics that prevented progress in Greece, he first hit headlines organising high-school sit-ins.

And unlike those on the left before him, he came unencumbered.

“That is very important: he is not of the generation of defeat, of the civil war and defeat of the left,” says the Syriza MP Theano Fotiou. “He does not carry the burden on his shoulder. He really is about hope.”

For Tsipras’s fans – who increasingly include members of Greece’s decimated middle class, even if his bedrock of support comes from a vast underclass of unemployed youth – he is a visionary who has dared to tackle the dark heart of power.

For his critics, who are legion, he is a dangerous narcissist and economic lightweight whose ascent is based on feelgood pledges he will not be able to keep.

Last week, the deputy premier and socialist leader, Evangelos Venizelos, likened him to Harry Potter for making promises that could only exist in the realm of fantasy.

Tsipras comes untested by power and that, more than anything, is to his advantage. But while he has shown an uncanny ability to be flexible – in recent weeks he has softened his rhetoric dramatically – few believe he will be able to change enough to satisfy creditors when debt-stricken Athens re-engages in gruelling negotiations to stay afloat.

Militants in his party will not make compromise easy.

The responsibility that comes with government will undoubtedly require concessions. Avoiding demagogic confrontation will be a priority for Berlin, the provider of the bulk of Greece’s €240bn bailout.

“The challenge of Tsipras is to turn an insurgency into a governing party,” says Denis MacShane, the UK’s former Europe minister. “Can he make Syriza into something like the German Green party or Brazil’s Workers’ party under Lula or does he want an all-out fight?”