Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras earned the unenviable top spot in a recent Guardian readers’ survey, which rated how populist certain politicians are, both on the right and left. In fact, based on the survey, entitled “How populist were these politicians on the stump?”, the hard left Greek premier edged out Venezuela’s authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro.
The erstwhile anti-austerity and anti-bailout Greek firebrand scored 1.8 on a relevant scale – with zero meaning not populist at all, and 2 being the maximum.
His grade equaled Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, who led the pack on the right.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, once vilified by Tsipras and much of Greece’s populists on both the right and left, scored “0” – in the right column. Hillary Clinton also fared well on the left column, polling 0.1.
In a bid to soften and rationalize the Greek political leader’s “uber populist” showing, the Guardian notes that “…Tsipras’ sky-high score seems a product of the timing of his speeches – the 2015 election, prior to his capitulation to the lenders that bailed out the Greek economy; by all accounts, he moderated his language since.”
