Profile: Alexis Tsipras

Alexis Tsipras rose to political stardom as the crisis in Greece blew apart the bipartisan system that had been in place for decades.

Born in 1974, Tsipras trained as a civil engineer.


The election trail



He entered parliament in 2009 at the head of the radical left Syriza party. It had won 4.6 percent of the vote. The entry threshold is three percent. Tsipras positioned himself against the bailout conditions imposed externally on Greece.

Tsipras assumed the political role of king-maker after coming in second place in the elections of May 2012.

In a second poll in June of that year, Syriza increased its share of the vote to just under 27 percent. Tsipras became the only politician to manage to give Greeks hope in the future.

The municipal and European elections of 2014 were also a success, with Syriza steadily closing the gap on the country’s leading conservatives in the polls.

Life for ordinary Greeks


By this time, ordinary Greeks living under draconian a