Sokratis Famellos

SYRIZA MP Olga Gerovasili slammed recently-ousted party leader Stefanos Kasselakis on Wednesday but stopped short of confirming whether she will run for the party leadership in the upcoming election.

With the ousted President of SYRIZA Progressive Alliance, Stefanos Kasselakis, currently in Italy, as revealed today by protothema.gr, top party officials are meeting this afternoon with a “toolbox” of criteria to finalize the roadmap, the characteristics of the upcoming Congress, and primarily the terms for participating in the race for new leadership.

With a difference of 58 days—on October 13 and December 1—PASOK and SYRIZA will elect their leadership.

Ousted SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis will not set up a new party and will remain in SYRIZA, one of his associates has said.

In an interview with Mega television, SYRIZA MP Theodora Tzakri said that she has been in daily contact with Kasselakis since his removal office following a central committee vote of no confidence.

SYRIZA’s top officials are set to face the new reality following Stefanos Kasselakis’s removal from the leadership of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, as the Political Secretariat meets today at 4 p.m. Tensions remain high within the party.

Although Kasselakis was removed, it is difficult to foresee a revival of SYRIZA in the near future. The crisis will deepen, and we will see many more episodes. There might be agreements on positions, political alliances, organizational structures, priorities, and programs.

What is happening in the political opposition at the moment is very bad. It is bad for everyone. SYRIZA turns out to have been an opportunistic formation based on the charisma of former leader (and premier) Alexis Tsipras and was the product of great and justified public anger. 

The dismissal of Stefanos Kasselakis from the position of SYRIZA president by an enhanced majority of the Central Committee (163 yes and 123 no and null/blank votes) leads the main opposition party into new internal elections within a year. At the same time, it brings Alexis Tsipras back to the forefront, who played a role in both the election of Kasselakis and his removal a year later.

Party leader Stefanos Kasselakis, facing heavy internal criticism for his proposed organizational changes to SYRIZA, remains determined to push the party into a new phase, even considering changing its name. These proposals have sparked strong reactions, even from long-time supporters, increasing Kasselakis’s sense of political isolation.

As main opposition SYRIZA heads to its congress this weekend, the most difficult one of recent years, there has been no letup in the tension between its leadership and the internal opposition.