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A framed photograph of Che Guevara exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke hangs in Alexis Tsipras' modest office in central Athens. It's an easy symbol for those in Europe who see the leftist Greek politician as a dangerous ideologue threatening to drag his country out of the euro and bring drachmageddon not only to Greece but to the European Union. The demonization bemuses Tsipras, 37, a calm civil engineer who says he's merely a realist. "Greece has been a European and international experiment, and the Greek people have been the guinea pigs," Tsipras tells TIME. "In the past two years, we have suffered a social catastrophe. One out of two young Greeks are not only unemployed; they cannot even dream or hope for a better future. The country doesn't export olive oil, oranges, cheese and olives anymore. It exports young scientists. It's a bleeding that has to stop."

Tsipras was an obscure opposition politician just weeks ago, but now he's unnerving the powers that be in the E.U. That is because he and his Syriza party may just win enough seats in Parliament on June 17 to form a government, alone or in coalition. A first round of voting on May 6 led to a stalemate, with no party — not even the two mainstream ones — able to form a coalition. But the surprise was Syriza, which came in with the second most seats, more than tripling its share of the vote from 2009. The win was a blow not only to the ossified political class but also to the austerity politics it had acceded to, which were imposed on the debt-ridden country by the E.U. — or, as many Greeks see it, by Germany and its Chancellor, Angela Merkel. As a Syriza slogan declared, "They decided without us. We'll go on without them."

Tsipras had held to his principles for two years, ever since the E.U. first bailed out Greece in 2010. But Greeks didn't buy his message until the May vote. By that time, the country had about lost patience with the tax hikes and wage and pension cuts forced on it as conditions for the infusion of funds Athens needed to satisfy its creditors. Greeks were then infuriated to hear from international lenders that they weren't doing enough to get themselves out of their fiscal hole. Protests grew and did not end. The PASOK government of Premier George Papandreou, the heir of a storied political family, resigned. A coalition government led by an experienced central banker, Lucas Papademos — E.U.-approved — couldn't calm the country.

Amid the turmoil, Tsipras executed a dramatic and canny political metamorphosis, transforming himself from the leader of a radical leftist coalition to a left-of-center standard bearer for anti-bailout and anti-austerity populism. "It's a paradox to think Greece can stay in the euro zone if the austerity policies continue to be implemented," he says. "These policies were the wrong medicine for the crisis. When there is a patient and you give him medicine and it only makes him worse, it is not logical to insist on giving him a higher dose of the same medicine. You've got to change the medicine. If we continue taking this austerity medicine — and especially at a higher dose — that's when Greece is going to be forced out of the euro. And when Greece leaves, the whole euro zone will start wobbling." Indeed, a Greek exit could begin a domino exodus of such troubled economies as Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy, effectively wrecking the historic enterprise of the E.U.

That Greece's weakness can be wielded as a threat has resonance among Tsipras' fellow citizens, and he has benefited from the electoral calculus. Polls show Syriza — a leftist collection ranging from ultra-communist to moderate — and the conservative New Democracy party, which supported the second bailout, running close. If his party manages to win on June 17, Tsipras says he is not going to back down on his rejection of the harshest terms of the billions in bailout loans that are now keeping Greece solvent. "This agreement died on May 6," he says, referring to the fact that more than half of Greek voters chose anti-bailout parties. And even though New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras says Tsipras' anti-bailout stance will push Greece out of the euro zone, Samaras is taking a cue from the younger man's playbook and quieting his pro-bailout talk.

The June 17 election, Tsipras predicts, "will be a contest between the forces of yesterday's compromised politicians and the fear they peddle and the forces of hope and building something new." He says he will not form a coalition with New Democracy or PASOK, which has run Greece for 21 of the past 30 years. "You can't build something new out of old, worn-out materials," he says. "I predict that there won't be a third election. The polarization is so clear that either one party will win or another. All the cards are laid out on the table."

And yet Tsipras is playing the game shrewdly. Even as he says that the status quo on austerity is untenable, he reiterates his country's commitment to the euro. He says his party doesn't want it both ways: in the euro but without the obligations of paying back debt. "It's not our choice for Greece to exit the euro zone, and it's not an option," he tells TIME. "Greece's fate is linked to Europe's and vice versa." Again and again, Tsipras insists he is not trying to blow up the euro and Europe. "Europe," he says, "has a special role globally as a stable and secure power between the U.S. and rising superpowers. I believe it would be a tragedy if the euro, the second biggest reserve currency in the world, collapsed."

But, he says, "we want our European partners to accept what is fair for Greece and adopt a plan for fair fiscal reforms and economic and social growth. It may take time, but we need to avoid more pauperization of this country." Indeed, a return to the drachma — while recommended by some economists — could see Greeks losing as much as two-thirds of the value of their savings and other assets. Tsipras says he's not selling a no-pain pipe dream to get elected. "We've never said the path we propose will be strewn with rose petals," he says. "It's going to be a difficult one, mainly because at this point, Greece is no longer on the brink. It's fallen off the cliff."

Many in the country and the rest of Europe worry that Tsipras and Syriza — which is an acronym meaning the coalition of the radical left — don't have the experience, skills or flexibility to come up with a realistic plan to keep Greece solvent and in the euro. "He is young and clever and he has a leader's self-assurance," wrote Nikos Konstandaras, an editor at the Greek daily Kathimerini, in a recent essay. "Unfortunately, he also has the same great weakness of most of his predecessors in Greek politics — instead of formulating policies to deal with pressing problems, he is happy to flatter a nation which has its own fatal weaknesses for flattery and lies."

An activist since joining the Communist Youth of Greece as a teenager, Tsipras led student occupations of schools in the early 1990s to oppose education privatization. He has been a public figure ever since. Many Greeks remember him as the confident high schooler with the Johnny Depp hair who was interviewed on national television. "The guy is consistent. He doesn't change his views and doesn't change his values in his personal and political life," says Mathaios Tsimitakis, who met Tsipras during the student occupations and has remained friends with him. Tsimitakis says Tsipras is devoted to his longtime partner Betty, whom he met in high school, and their 2-year-old son.

Nevertheless, as his star has risen since the May 6 election, Tsipras has also softened his politics. He has said he would give up being Prime Minister if it would pave the way for a coalition government that didn't include pro-bailout parties. While he still challenges Merkel and the euro-zone leaders in Brussels to change their policies toward Greece, he also says he's not going to walk away from negotiations. And though he still invokes leftist ideals, he sounds more like a moderate (or a center-leftist) when addressing issues like tax evasion and corruption. He says he agrees that Greece must make tough structural reforms. He proposes cracking down on corruption and tax evasion, especially by the rich. He wants to create an assets registry with which Greeks could register property and bank accounts so all can be taxed fairly. Says Tsipras: "We need to fight corruption in order to convince Greeks to contribute to this effort."

The powerful in France and Germany, however, have steered clear of Tsipras. Merkel ignores him and continues to say that Greece must stick to loan agreements to keep getting aid. Still, Tsipras says he abhors depictions in the Greek tabloid press of her and other Germans as Nazis. "It's unfair, and this course must absolutely be reversed," he says. "But the reversal of these attitudes must be driven by mutual initiatives. German leaders must understand that they should not insist on the same hard fiscal proposals, and more importantly, they should not insult the dignity of the Greek people. Greece is a sovereign country, not a German colony."

He believes the E.U. must now make hard and critical decisions. "Europe is at a crossroads, the same crossroads it was at in the 1930s during the aftermath of the economic crisis of 1929," he says. "The U.S. followed the New Deal policy by Franklin Roosevelt. Europe, on the other hand, chose policies of fiscal discipline that eventually led to the rise of national socialism and Nazism in the heart of Europe, Germany. Today, Europe is again at a crossroads. I don't want to be a Cassandra, but either we will become wiser from our past experience — we will realize that Roosevelt was right and follow that path — or Ms. Merkel will insist on her policies, which lead to a dead end. She will bear heavy responsibility for bringing down the euro zone and European Union."

So what if Syriza comes to power and Europe doesn't go along with Tsipras' ideas? Does he have an option for a worst-case scenario? "Indeed, we have a plan," he says. "There's a team of economists who lay out the plans, update and communicate them. I am not superstitious, but I don't really want to talk about it. I don't think it would be useful, since it would be a signal that we're leaning toward the worst-case scenario. That's the last thing we want."

• Joanna Kakissis / Athens
• Once an obscure leftist politician, Alexis Tsipras may hold the fate of the euro in his grip. Will he win enough seats to govern?