Greece teeters on the brink of a crisis as its government navigates between demands for austerity by European bankers and politicians and popular outrage prompted by the social costs of those same austerity measures. Although Prime Minister George Papandreou has survived in a vote of confidence, a difficult time for him has not disappeared. Some worry that the future of the euro is at stake as well.
Few elections were as bittersweet as Mr. Papandreou's 2009 win. In retrospect, he appears to have accepted a poisoned chalice when he took office in October 2009, discovering that his country was bankrupt, run into the ground because of profligate politicians and an elite that was allergic to paying taxes.
Staring into an ocean of red ink that was one and a half times the size of the country's gross domestic product, the government in Athens was forced to seek out a 110 billion bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.