The Greeks appointed a brilliant, charismatic far-left, motorbike riding academic to be finance minister.  The results were not good.
No doubt using techniques which had helped him up the university greasy pole, he recorded secretly his first private meetings with the German finance minister, himself a former brilliant academic  in a wheel chair since spine was snapped by bullet from  a left-wing nutter who subscribed to the anarchist vision of reaching Marx's promised land.
Not secretly enough, the German realized what was happening a refused to talk to him again.  Which was a problem.
Even so, the finance minister was a driving force behind the referendum where the Greeks voted in favour of leaving the Euro, the EU and magically finding the land of milk and honey.
Luckily sense hit the prime minister and he sacked the finance minister and ignored the referendum.
One would have thought that South Africa would keep left wing academics where they belong -- ivory towers.