To put it differently, even if the elections of January 25th simply meant the end of the Memorandum, the result would still have been of extreme value: it would still have meant that democracy is not just, as the saying goes, a (momentary) expression of “popular will”, but it remains an active reality long after election day–surviving coordinated international blackmail, national pressure from the domestic political system that has been reproducing the blackmail internally, and in the face of sarcastic ‘prophets’ of all sorts, who have eagerly been warning for ‘an inevitable’ U-turns (aka kolotoumba, the Greek name for somersault) for quite some time. And yet, along with rejecting the Memorandum, the programmatic announcements did not just justify peoples vote.

They also provided utmost official reassurance that the struggles and their protagonists, those who vested their hope in Syriza, do and did matter in making a difference: because they can win. This is proven by the reinstatement of the cleaners, of the Universities’ administrative employees and of the school janitors who had lost their jobs due to austerity. It is also proven by the re-opening of ERT, by cancelling the appointment of the Universities’ administrative councils, by annulling the threat of furlough hanging over the heads of state employees –even for ideological reasons. And it is also proven by the protection of people’s main resident that had been at risk of repossession, by the return of the Christmas bonus for low pensions, by resetting non-taxable income to 12,000 euros. None of the above were purely “symbolic” moves, nor were the abolishment of provocative privileges given to certain state bureaucrats. These are measures taken for the reinstatement of democracy and trust in politics that simultaneously change the lives of real people in an instant.

Citizenship attribution to immigrants’ children born in Greece was also an emblematic move from this perspective. Emblematic because, despite the fears left voters had ( or hope when it came from the centre-left) that human right pre-election promises would be stopped by the Independent Greeks (ANEL), the right wing coalition party they have formed a government with, Syriza immediately obliged to its commitment to basic democratic guarantees which will safeguard the lives of tens of thousands of children here in Greece –who were kept hostage for three years by the far-right group of Samaras-Baltakos-Athanasiou. The government’s insistence to commit to pre-election promises for citizenship attribution, as well as sticking to announced pre-election external policies, are more than enough to convince even the more distrustful: the new government’s intentions are clearly the ones dictated by the majority in parliament.

Is everything ideal? Far from it. There are certain promises that have either been postponed, like re-establishing the minimum wage to 751 euros, which will be consolidated in stages until 2016, or “put on hold” for now, like the abolishment of the various militarised units of the Police (according to Minister, Y. Panoussis, the MAT riot police will simply be renamed for now). But here is where fields of struggle and dialogue can open up –in other words, these are opportunities for the labour and rights movements: not in order to “keep account” of the government’s retreats and missteps, but in order to push for these reforms to take place, and take credit for them.

With the core of the “Thessaloniki Programme” underway regardless of the course of the negotiations, with the reassurance that the solution of the “Greek problem” will be European, but on the antipodes of austerity, the new government confirmed its priorities and its alliances, showing that democracy can be much more than an empty suit. What’s equally important: the government has also created a real chance of ideological hegemony for the Left, for the first time since 1944. The wounds caused by the civil war have healed, many conservative voters supported Syriza at the ballot (and many more do now), and ANEL participated in government. All this does not mean that Left and Right have ceased to exist –in fact, the exact opposite is true. The creditors’ cynical blackmail is not aimed at “Greece” in general, but at Syriza in particular, and the Greek Left, so that the road for Podemos and Sinn Fein is blocked for good, and so that it never opens for Die Linke.