ATHENS – Greece’s hard-core ruling Radical Left SYRIZA – which stood alone in the European Union in refusing to condemn Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro – now has condemned democracy protesters that country for trying to topple the regime.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is an admirer of Maduro, whose government is accused of massive corruption and pushing the country toward the brink of ruin, where even electricity has been scarce in the world’s richest oil depositories.

A SYRIZA statement denounced “any anti-democratic intervention targeting the democratically-elected government in Venezuela,” as the country remains embedded with protests that government tanks and security forces keep crushing.

SYRIZA said there should be new Presidential elections, however,  as opposition leader Juan Guaido has called for but said “There has to be a democratic solution to the crisis through a dialogue between the government and the opposition,” without explaining how.

“The international community has an obligation to mediate so as to (help) de-escalate the crisis and prevent violence and blood-shed, and not fuel further tension,” it said, although many of the world’s governments are against Maduro, leaving Greece isolated in the EU.

Guaido has appealed for his supporters to take to the streets again on May 1 – May Day – following a day of violent clashes in which a military vehicle plowed through protesters – with no condemnation from SYRIZA.

The United States is fiercely against Maduro, putting Tsipras in an awkward position after he said Greece now has its closet relations ever with Washington after the Greek leader backed away from his previous anti-American, anti-NATO stance.

Politico magazine had named Tsipras among Europe’s six “die hard” supporters of Maduro, coming just after Greece in 2017 reportedly also prevented a call for stronger sanctions against Venezuela after the South American country’s violence-tainted elections.

“(Tsipras) once mentioned Venezuela as an anti-capitalist model and his aides say one of his heroes is (Maduro’s predecessor Hugo) Chavez, with whom he shares a birthday (July 28),” the Brussels-based website said.

Quoting recent reports in the Greek media, Politico noted that as opposition leader before taking power in January 2015 that Tsipras sought cheap Venezuelan oil and diplomatic support in the case of a Greek exit from the Eurozone.

The article also refers to his alleged trip to Moscow in July 2013 for secret talks with a Venezuelan official. Tsipras is a former Communist Youth leader whose party is filled with Stalinists, Maoists, Leninists, Trotskyites and anarchist and terrorist sympathizers.