Yanis Varoufakis, the man tipped to be Greece's new finance minister following a blowout victory for anti-establishment party Syriza, speaks with the UK's Channel 4 News. Syriza, whose name is a Greek acronym for "Coalition of the Radical Left," won national elections this weekend under a left-wing populist, euro-skeptic, and anti-globalization platform. As votes are counted and Syriza learns the magnitude of their victory, Varoufakis promises to "destroy" the corrupt "Triangle Of Sin" ruling Greece: An "unholy alliance" between bankrupt bankers, gov't contractors, and mass media owners, who together are "strangling" Greece's democracy.





YANIS VAROUFAKIS, SYRIZA: Three main things.



First, we have to deal with a humanitarian crisis. It is preposterous that in 2015 you have people that had jobs and homes and who owned shops only a couple of years ago, who today are sleeping out and going to bed hungry at night. It is unacceptable that you have school kids doing their homework by candle light because their electricity supply has been discontinued by the State, who in its infinite wisdom decided to tax property through the electricity bill, for God's sake.



These are things that cost very little money and have major symbolic, social, ethical, and moral impact. So this is one of the three planks.



The second thing we need to do in this country is to reform it, to reform it deeply, and to reform it in a way which, I call it the Triangle of Sin. The Triangle of Sin in Greece composes the procurement aspects of the state, where you have rent-seeking suppliers of the state charging an arm and a leg. A Greek motorway costs three times what it costs France to build a motorway -- that is unacceptable.



Secondly, the second part of the triangle, is the bankrupt bankers who are exacting a major price.



And thirdly, the mass media, who are perpetually bankrupt. And one should ask a question such as, so how can they manage to make ends meet when they've never turned a profit?



QUESTION, CHANNEL FOUR: You can almost here the European center condemning you, as a left-wing party, meddling with freedom of speech.



VAROUFAKIS: The opposite. We are absolutely committed to freedom of speech. And freedom of speech in Greece has been jeopardized by this unholy alliance between bankrupt bankers, developers, and the media owners, who become the voice of those who want to sponge and scrounge of the productive effort of everyone else.



QUESTION, CHANNEL FOUR: And what will you do to the oligarchy, completely?



VAROUFAKIS: We are going to destroy the basis upon which they have built, for decade after decade, a system and network that viciously sucks the energy and economic power from everybody else in society.



QUESTION, CHANNEL FOUR: You're not just an economist , you know the history of this country. You know what happened last time someone tried to take power from the Greek oligarchy.



VAROUFAKIS: The good fight has to be fought independently of costs.



QUESTION, CHANNEL FOUR: The cost might be at some point, a Syriza government will see a challenge to Democracy.



VAROUFAKIS: There is no alternative but to remain steadfast in our opposition to those forces that are essentially depriving democracy of its substance. Let's go to my third plank.



Of course, humanitarian crisis, reforming Greece: attacking the oligarchy, doing away with tax immunity, the problem is not so much tax evasion it is tax immunity. The third thing is renegotiating this loan agreement with our European partners, which has been detrimental to Europe as a whole.



QUESTION, CHANNEL FOUR: Youguys have been on the outside of politics for years, what does it feel like to suddenly come to the brink of power?



VAROUFAKIS: Scary. One word, scary.

