On Monday morning, Stefanos Kasselakis made his first extended statement, in which he revealed some of his intentions for the coming period.

In the video he posted on Facebook, he calls the decision to exclude him from the Central Committee to run for president of SYRIZA unprecedented and shocking.

At the same time, he reiterates his intention to disagree at the party Committee conference, saying that “this will decide everything”. In this context, he even calls on those who are “left-wing and progressive citizens who are not already members of SYRIZA to register immediately, by October 24, so that you can vote for congress members” in an attempt to change the correlations, which, as protothema.gr wrote this morning, are not on his side.

As he notes “you know by now that a handful of people are capable of anything. If they see that they don’t manage to win the Central Committee will postpone once again.”

“The left is out of the question. The left is required to open itself to tomorrow. Take SYRIZA into your own hands. Democracy fights back,” concluded Stefanos Kasselakis.

Stefanos Kasselakis message: 

A minority of members of one body have banned the duly elected chairman of the party from running again.
It is an unprecedented event in the history of the country.
It is a shocking event in the history of the left.
But the supreme organ of SYRIZA is the Central Committee. It will decide everything.
Our voice is the party.
You know by now that a handful of people are capable of everything. If they see that they can’t win, they will postpone it again.
But even the mechanisms have their limits.
And that’s why I ask you to become a great wave of democracy that will sweep away all these mechanisms.
I know you feel sadness, anger, frustration.
Turn these into stubbornness, strength, and struggle.
I ask you not to leave the OM.
I ask you to become a shield of democracy.
If you are left-wing and progressive citizens and are not already members of SYRIZA, please register immediately, by October 24, so that you can vote for congress members.
Fill SYRIZA with thousands of #I_am_here.
It would be an easy solution to leave.
But I invite you to the hard part: to win back the dignity of the democratic party.
It does not deserve this humiliation.
It is not worthy of our grandfathers’ struggles for freedom and democracy. It is not worthy of our children’s hopes for a just society with equal opportunities.
The left is excluded from excluding.
The left is required to open itself to tomorrow.
Take SYRIZA in your hands.
Democracy fights back.

Split or referendum;

This was preceded by a double attempt to enter the political frame yesterday by Stefanos Kasselakis, the next day of the rejection of his candidacy for the leadership of SYRIZA Progressive Alliance, but also his second in a row of political disapproval by the members of the party’s Central Committee.

The former SYRIZA president congratulated on the one hand PASOK president Nikos Androulakis on his re-election, meaningfully underlining the “impeccable democratic procedures” of Harilaou Trikoupi, to watch – in between – the struggle of National Greece with Theodora Tzakri, who was his main representative at the stormy meeting of the SYRIZA steering committee the day before yesterday.

Although last Saturday’s developments, whenever the party’s Central Committee said “that’s it” to the former president, showing him the exit from the succession race, are still extremely fresh, however, the concern was yesterday, according to reliable sources, more than evident in the camp of the “Kasselists” about what is to come in the future.

Despite the explosive atmosphere, the verbal disapprovals, the incidents, and confrontations between the “Kasselistas” and members of the majority during last Saturday’s meeting, the tension on the Kasselakis side shows no sign of abating when the time and numerical margins for any new maneuvers by the former president are narrowing. In this context, in the various scenarios that the “Kasselistas” seem to be working on in recent hours, they encounter as inhibiting factors the lack of organizational structure and the possibility of building alliances within the party.

Numbers and… Conference

In this light, although the most fanatical fans of Stefanos Kasselakis, as well as supportive -to him- known trolls were making “appointments at the Congress” immediately after the Central Committee’s decision was announced, however, to call for an Extraordinary Conference calling for his dismissal from the office of president, the agreement of 15% of the party’s financially fit members, i.e. 30.000 members, a figure that is very difficult for the Kasselakis side to approach after a double party defeat. Moreover, if an Extraordinary Conference is announced today, at least three months will have to pass – according to the procedure – and due to the holidays, it cannot take place earlier than February.

Things look difficult for Stefanos Kasselakis in SYRIZA’s upcoming conference scheduled for November 8, with an agenda to approve the candidates for the party’s presidency. Even if those supporting  Kasselakis attempted to broaden the discussion to include issues outside the agenda, such as a motion of impeachment against him, for the former president to impose his personal opinion, he would have to gather a majority, i.e. 50%+1 of the body. That party experience has shown that when a majority correlation is eventually formed in the governing bodies of a party, such as its Central Committee, it also reflects the dynamics of things at the grassroots, which guides its cadres.

Therefore, it is considered almost impossible for Kasselakis to control the upcoming conference, if it is not postponed… until further notice, since such a development presupposes that the former president’s side will manage to elect an overwhelming number of delegates to the organizations on the weekend of November 2-3. This is highly doubtful when the metric has been set at 1/40 to 1/60, setting the bar extremely high for the unclaimed party apparatchiks.

Moreover, there are not a few voices of top executives, in the likes of Christos Spirtzis, who speak of the need for a purely “political conference”, guided by the ideological and political identity of the party, without ruling out the possibility that new nominations will then be submitted.

Dionysis Teboneras also spoke out against the immediate holding of elections and a congress, at a time when many SYRIZA executives are now calling for a dynamic opposition presence, following the completion of the internal elections in PASOK.

Equally painful will be for Stefanos Kasselakis’ inner-party supporters the possibility of holding an internal referendum to gauge his levels of grassroots momentum. Although he partially hinted at it while speaking to ANT1 when he said that “the constitution also gives rights of initiative to party members. So therefore there are safeguards, we will not allow a scenario of liquidation of the party, we will not allow a scenario of postponement”, the situation, however, is more complex. Especially, when to hold an internal party referendum, this demand requires that the petition must gather the signatures of 15% of the financially settled members of the party, a goal that is proving rather unattainable for the Kasselakis side. At the same time, however, the approval of the referendum question requires 50%+1 of the members.

The idea of an intra-party referendum has, however, reportedly been of great concern to the Kasselakis side, which has not come up with a way to break the deadlock it has been led to. More inexpensive about the consumption of the political capital of Mr. Kasselakis is considered, however, the possibility of his departure from SYRIZA, with the creation of an independent parliamentary group, in which reportedly, according to information, only 9 of the 11 total MPs who support him will follow Mr. Kasselakis in the immediate future.

Dourou or Tzakri

Less cost to his personal, political profile would also ensure the possibility that persons with close reference to the environment of Kasselakis, such as the MPs, Rena Dourou and Theodora Tzakri, would run in the current election race. Especially in the case of Ms. Dourou, her systematic absence from party meetings and intra-party friction has relieved her of a great burden of toxicity to comfortably inherit the “Kasselistas” nomination, given that she never questioned Mr. Kasselakis and his policy choices in public view.

However, if Rena Dourou is not qualified to replace Stefanos Kasselakis by the “Kasselistas”, the possibility of Theodora Tzakri being nominated for the office remains in their discussions. Already, her presence in place of Kasselakis at the last Central Committee reinforced these associations, especially when Ms. Tzakri clashed head-on all this time in the steering bodies with Olga Gerovassili, who acted as the informal head of the majority bloc.

It is no coincidence, moreover, that the leading role of the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, Olga Gerovassili, in the last year in terms of promoting a climate of defense of the political legacy of SYRIZA and its government, has triggered massive waves of anonymous attacks against her on social networks and the internet, where the “Kasselites” have a superior communication skills.

“Taps” and cuts

In any case, the road for the return of Stefanos Kasselakis to the central political scene remains unpaved and still uncharted, unlike Koumoundourou, which plans its dynamic comeback on Wednesday, with the filing of a request for the establishment of a preliminary committee of the Parliament, for the case of Tempi. Already, the presence of SYRIZA’s CO chairman, Nikos Pappas, at the tribute concert was anything but coincidental, all the more so since the “Pappas era” in terms of SYRIZA’s parliamentary presence appears intense and highly upgraded. To the point that Mr. Pappas met Ms. Tzakri’s shots head-on at the Central Committee meeting, although he seems to have defied them. On the opposite side, Nikos Pappas was contacted by phone – and by fire – yesterday from the SYRIZA PS side with the president of PASOK Mr. Nikos Androulakis, whom he congratulated on his re-election and wished him good strength in his work, removing the right to represent the party in the public sphere from Mr. Kasselakis.

PASOK’s candidate for party president, Paulos Polakis, also took a position on the internal party elections, noting in an intervention that “the completion of the leadership election process in PASOK, despite the mass participation, on the one hand, does not constitute a change of course within the generally progressive and democratic party, and on the other hand puts on file broader scenarios and plans for reorganizations in the wider political arena.”

“Now more than ever, the need for a great SYRIZA, with a program and plan for the country’s future, a political vehicle and the core of the alliance that will guarantee the implementation of the new social contract of the next decade for the benefit of the many, is emerging! That is, the forces of labor, small and medium entrepreneurship, the rural world, and our youth,” he said. “With our eyes on society, today for the opposition that the country needs and tomorrow for the solid hands that will hold the helm of the country, we proceed to build the new SYRIZA, as the engine of change that the people need… and which is just around the corner!”, concluded Mr. Polakis.