Caption: “Political analysts highlight the danger of a possible attack of Godzilla in Athens, if SYRIZA wins the elections” Meme tweeted by @kgougakis Greek social media users have been tweeting in overdrive for a month but they've been on fire since January 25, the day of national legislative elections in Greece, which paved the way for the country's new bold 40-year-old prime minister Alexis Tsipras. Tsipras, a self-described atheist, has made history by politely shunning Greece's traditional religious oath of office from the country's Archbishop. He has also become the youngest prime minister in Greek history since 1865. That's not all. For the first time in 40 years, Greece's two big political parties PASOK or New Democracy are not in the new government, and many “traditional” families with a long history in modern Greek politics are finally out of parliament. Many #Greeks around 40 will wake up tomorrow in a #Greece without #PASOK or #ND in govt for the first time in their lives. — Bruno Tersago (@BrunoTersago) January 25, 2015 It all started with the unprecedented failure of the previous parliament to cast enough votes to elect a new president as head of state, which is a mostly ceremonial role. Their move triggered early general elections. The opposition accused the government of sowing fear to win support for the presidential vote and avoid elections, while former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned that “the country risked a catastrophic return to the depths of its debt crisis if the government fell” and claimed that “denial to agree on presidential selection is political blackmail”. Τhere was constant fear-mongering by the government and its allies in mainstream media that it would be the “end of the world” if SYRIZA came to government, as speculated by this article on a popular news portal in December 2014: Και όλα δείχνουν ότι θα πορευτούν με ασκήσεις πολιτικής τρομοκρατίας, του τύπου κι επιπέδου, «ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ θα μας οδηγήσει στη χρεοκοπία», «ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ θα μας βγάλει απ’ το ευρώ», «με το ΣΥΡΙΖΑ θα αδειάσουν τα ΑΤΜ», «θα μας τινάξουν στον αέρα» και τα λοιπά, συναφή και λίγο-πολύ γνωστά! Everything shows that [the government] will proceed with activities of political terrorism, such as “Syriza will lead us to bankruptcy”, “Syriza will get us out of Eurozone”, “ATMs will run empty, if Syriza wins”, “they will blow us apart” etc. – everything quite similar and known as before! After the general elections, his party Syriza gathered only 149 out of 151 seats needed for a majority in a parliament of 300, so Tsipras agreed to share power with the populist rightwing party Independent Greeks (who only got 4.74% votes). Analysts are waiting to see how the two parties are going to cooperate; besides their opposition to Troika, they have totally different agendas. I am NOT happy with SYRIZA deciding to form a coalition with Indep Greeks. They're racist, homophobic, antisemitic loonies. #ekloges2015 — Theodora Oikonomides (@IrateGreek) January 26, 2015 In a post titled “Greece wakes up to a different world”, blogger Teacherdude eloquently summarizes the coalition between Syriza and Independent Greeks: The choice of Independent Greeks has surprised many observers, especially those abroad who find it hard to comprehend a partnership between a radical socialist party and a conservative nationalist one, Yet for Syriza this constitutes the least worst choice given the options available. The most obvious candidate for coalition partner would have been the Greek Communist Party (KKE) but anyone even vaguely aware of Greek politics would have known that such an alliance would have been impossible as KKE would never compromise on its own leftist principles which include leaving the European Union, the Eurozone and NATO. So, in the end Independent Greeks who are often painted as a collection of right wing conspiracy theorists and borderline racists […] made the cut […]. However, the party led by Panos Kammenos repeatedly made clear its opposition to Troika imposed austerity measures and its participation will perhaps assuage more conservative Greeks that issues such as defence and policing will not be solely decided by a bunch of “wild radicals”. […] Back to the unconventional nature of the new Greek Prime Minister, this article summarizes the many “records” of Tsipras”: 1. Youngest Prime Minister (40 years old). [correction: youngest PM of Modern Greece] 2. First PM born after “Metapolitefsi” [1974] 3. First atheist Greek PM 4. First unmarried Greek PM; he has only made cohabitation agreement. 5. First Greek PM who hasn't baptised his children, but has made a civil naming ceremony. 6. First Greek PM who takes a civil oath instead of the traditional religious oath. 7. First PM to attend swearing-in ceremony tieless. 8.