Can the new cabinet save Tsipras?
Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has reshaped his government team. Observers see the reshuffle above all as a bid to improve his left-leaning Syriza party's poor approval ratings. Framing the move as a new start won't do Tsipras much good, commentators believe.
Greek prime minister doomed
The cabinet reshuffle won't boost Tsipras's flagging approval ratings, To Vima comments:
“The citizens' frustration is growing and the prime minister's image has hit rock bottom, literally. Never before has an incumbent prime minister lost the public's trust so quickly. … The unfulfilled hopes he created, the arrogance and political amorality the government exudes, have led a substantial proportion of the voters to withdraw from political life. … No matter what Mr Tsipras and his government do now it is unlikely that it will change his disastrous public image.”
Tsipras still marching in same direction
The cabinet reshuffle is an interesting experiment, writes the Griechenland Zeitung in its online edition:
“Like all other cabinet reshuffles this one too is meant to convey a new start without the government fundamentally changing its political direction. … It is those ministers who caused bad blood because of their personalities rather than their policies who were transferred or removed. … Culture and education minister Nikos Filis and labour minister Jorgos Katrougalos are the most prominent examples. Both were replaced with fresh, unspent persons who are unlikely to cause any trouble by going rogue politically. However, one can't deny a certain political motivation behind the new appointments in the economics portfolio. The appointment of economics professor Dimitris Papadimitriou, who has close ties to the US, as the new Minister of Finance and Development could be a case in point.”