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 The 40-year-old former student Communist is acting like a prime
minister in waiting.
Syriza, once a fringe far-left movement, is now the most popular
party in Greece, representing the many voters who feel punished by
the country's EU/IMF bailout.
In May, the party easily won European elections and gained the
governor's seat for Greece's most populous region. Today, it polls
higher than any other party, leading by a margin of between 4 and 11
points over Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's conservatives. One poll
shows Tsipras as the most popular political leader in the country.
"The big change has begun. The old is on its way out. The new is
coming," Tsipras thundered in a recent speech to parliament. "No one
can stop it."
Key to Syriza's ascent, party officials say privately, is a
calculated effort to moderate the radical leftist rhetoric that
prompted German magazine Der Spiegel to name Tsipras among the most
dangerous men in Europe in 2012.
The party still rails against austerity measures and a
bailout-driven "humanitarian crisis". It wants to reverse minimum
wage cuts, freeze state layoffs and halt state asset sales.
But Syriza no longer threatens to tear up the bailout agreement or
default on debt. Instead, officials say it supports the euro and
wants to renegotiate the bailout by using the same pro-growth
arguments of partners France and Italy.
Syriza's transformation mirrors the political progression of other
anti-establishment fringe parties, such as the Northern League in
Italy, that changed tactics after gaining parliamentary power and
became more mainstream political forces.
It also reflects how Greece has turned a page on the dark days of
the eurozone crisis four years ago, when Athens' profligate spending
risked bringing down the entire euro project. Then, a Tsipras
victory at the polls was widely seen as a trigger for a bank run and
Greece's exit from the euro.
Recently, however, Tsipras has held talks with European Central Bank
chief Mario Draghi in Frankfurt and Austrian President Heinz
Fischer. Syriza's threadbare headquarters, where a portrait of Che
Guevara once hung on the wall, is undergoing a makeover to include
new desks and an expanded press room.
"This is not the Alexis Tsipras of 2010," said Blanka Kolenikova,
European analyst for IHS Global Insight. "Since the last election
Syriza's rhetoric has calmed down. Tsipras is preparing for the fact
that he might be leading a government so he needs to prove that he
is approachable and flexible."
Many people outside Greece say the risk stemming from a Tsipras
victory is nonetheless high, especially since Syriza's demands on
debt relief are widely considered to be unreasonable. They paint
Syriza in a context of rising populism in Europe.
FROM DEFAULT TO RENEGOTIATION
Greek parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 2016. But a
parliamentary vote to elect a president in February could change
that.
 Samaras needs the backing of 180 lawmakers to elect his nominee, but
currently has the support of only 155 deputies. He is hoping that
ending Greece's EU/IMF bailout a year early will help win additional
support, but Syriza and other opposition parties have promised to
block Samaras's nominee.
Under Greek law, parliament must be dissolved and fresh elections
called if it fails to elect a president. Syriza officials privately
say they have already begun talking to small parties about a future
alliance.
Fears of snap elections and the prospect of a Syriza-led government
have spooked investors and helped send Greek 10-year bond yields
briefly past an unsustainable level of 9 percent last month. Syriza
officials say they are not worried.
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Some people inside Greece ask in how far the party's more hardline
elements might block Tsipras's efforts to make Syriza a credible
party of government. Syriza still has some radical voices - like
parliamentary spokesman Panagiotis Lafazanis who has vowed to
"cancel" the bailout the way it was voted in, that is, by parliament
overnight. But more broadly, Syriza's rhetoric began to change
noticeably after the party won European elections this year.
"The climate in 2014 is very different from that in 2012. More and
more people realize that Syriza is a leftist European political
force fighting for change in Greece and in Europe and does not want
the euro zone to collapse," Dimitris Papadimoulis, a senior Syriza
official and a vice president of the European Parliament, told
Reuters. "The illusion that Syriza wants a return to the drachma has
gone."
Talk of nationalizing banks, for example, is notably absent.
Instead, a senior party official says the party believes in exerting
influence through the state bank bailout fund that controls three
out of four major Greek banks.
Tackling Greece's mountainous debt remains at the top of the party's
agenda. But talk of a debt "default" is gone, replaced with
"renegotiation". Syriza wants Europe to write off a big chunk of
Greece's 318 billion euros of debt - worth 175 percent of GDP - on a
recognition that Greece's problem is Europe's problem too.
Other proposals include linking debt repayments to economic growth,
an aggressive ECB policy of buying government bonds and excluding
the roughly 38 billion euros spent to prop up Greek banks from
national debt.
Some European officials say this is pie-in-the-sky thinking. Bailed
out twice with over 240 billion euros over four years, Greece's
prospects have improved since it nearly crashed out of the euro but
it still needs aid and lacks full market access.
 One senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity because
of the sensitivity of discussions between Greece and its lenders,
said that Greece is not in a position to negotiate.
The official said that Greece had already benefited from a 10-year
debt service holiday and the return of profits on Greek bonds bought
by the ECB and euro zone central banks under the securities markets
program.
Pollsters also note that a Syriza-led government is not necessarily
inevitable. Samaras still has time to stage a comeback, especially
if he manages to pull Greece out of the bailout and win over
anti-bailout lawmakers, they say.
"Syriza is currently leading with a very wide margin. But Samaras's
image is also very strong," said Takis Theodorikakos, head of GPO
pollsters. "The battle will be tough."
(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Paris, Writing by Deepa
Babington; editing by Alessandra Galloni and Janet McBride)
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