Alternative plans aimed at their personal political survival in the post Conference era are increasingly on the minds of more and more members of the SYRIZA Progressive Alliance, as the hourglass of Koumoundourou begins counting down from today for the party’s Extraordinary Congress.
Specifically, the Political Secretariat is meeting at 2 pm, in order to settle the last organizational details in view of the election of the Congress delegates this weekend, while everyone within SYRIZA is preparing to attend a multi-purpose venue with a capacity of about 3,000 people in Gazi on November 8-10, in the arena of which the forces of the new majority or the “Kasselistas” will finally face off.
The start of the congress is, at the same time, counted as the end of a long period of introspection, with the deputy speaker of the parliament, Olga Gerovasili commenting yesterday that the Congress “ends the bad period for SYRIZA”, although for many inside and outside the party the Congress is also seen as the beginning of broader political ferment that may well spill over into the broader progressive area.
Fire up the…photo
Already, the photographic montage that Kilkis MP Petros Pappas secured with the PASOK president, Nikos Androulakis during the anniversary events in Thessaloniki caused a chain reaction in Athens, revealing the existential anguish of top SYRIZA executives for the day after the Congress.
Speaking to Alpha yesterday, “I say that exploiting a photo in a parade for SYRIZA’s internal party politics is of no use. I don’t want any involvement in Syriza’s internal party politics. As long as there is this internal process in Syriza, PASOK will be watching from a distance. In the course of time we will see how things will go,” replied PASOK president Nikos Androulakis, while Charilaou Trikoupis is repeating in all tones that it is not involved in the internal party processes of other parties, with the exception of SYRIZA.
Earlier yesterday, however, “of course they are together, but what he says is self-evident, that he will remain in a party that excludes its legally elected president,” former SYRIZA chairman Stefanos Kasselakis, adding about the MEP of Kilkis that “he has been with me from the first moment”, but without mentioning in detail the product of the camera lens.
In the same interview, “you know that I have cultivated a good relationship with PASOK executives in the last period of time, but I strongly disagree with some of their decisions,” Kasselakis was quick to clarify, while local PASOK executives in the capital do not overlook the fact that Pappas has never spoken out against Charilaou Trikoupis. In this direction, even if the… headquarters of the two parties keep safe distances between them, the attack of friendship that PASOK executives around Greece receive at a regional level from members of the party apparatus of SYRIZA is not negligible, as Charilaou Trikoupis is gathering day by day the interest of progressive citizens, as recorded steadily upwards in all the latest polls.
At the same time, the mild and moderate tone of SYRIZA MPs, such as Miltos Zambaras, Rania Thraskia and several others, does not leave PASOK cadres unmoved, although none of the above opposition MPs has hinted at the possibility of “transcribing” it.
Moreover, only four parliamentary seats separate PASOK from the position of the official opposition, a fact that seems to mobilize even the leading members of SYRIZA in the possibility of wider shifts. However, going a step further yesterday, Stefanos Kasselakis left open the possibility of creating a new party if he is finally driven to leave SYRIZA. “If SYRIZA is liquidated with such practices, obviously there must be a modern, progressive party that will not have mediocre solutions,” Kasselakis said, giving a clear indication of the party’s project. “The country needs an independent, popular party, i.e. to have a grounding in the grassroots, to have a grounding in society,” the former SYRIZA president continued, adding that “it will be a business-friendly party that understands how the market works, how entrepreneurship works.”
Kasselakis Snitching on Tsipras
Despite the characteristics enumerated by Mr. Kasselakis, he responded to the possibility of establishing a new institution that “these are plans of others, not mine”, “nailing” his predecessor, Alexis Tsipras, in the wake of his institute’s last event in Piraeus.
The same event was, however, assessed as “very successful” yesterday the deputy speaker of the Parliament, Olga Gerovassili, who, in response to the possibility of Alexis Tsipras taking a political initiative, stressed that “what I believe is that these scenarios are set up with the idea that the political system in the country and other systems have a huge fear of a possible return of Alexis Tsipras”. “So, all the scenarios are set up based on fear and not because there really are scenarios,” she observed.
Until then, the deputy speaker of parliament claimed that “Stefanos Kasselakis knows that he has no place in SYRIZA”, adding that “it will be a bad development” if there is a majority in favour of his candidacy at the congress. “We will not allow and the people of SYRIZA will not allow the alteration and the dissolution of this space,” concluded Mrs. Gerovassili, who responded that “he is a member of the party, he has not been deleted” in the face of the intention of Stefanos Kasselakis to run for President, as announced yesterday himself in the pre-presidential process of the local organization of SYRIZA in Peristeri, of which he is a member.
In fact, the Kasselakis side reportedly appears to be staking a claim in the congress election battle this weekend, while it is possible that they may raise the issue of registration with isyriza, following the letter from the party’s Cyclades Coordinator, in which the latter allegedly complains that he was informed that “registration in isyriza does not imply registration in the party’s membership register, therefore the members in question who registered until 25/10 in isyriza are deprived of their rights to vote and be elected”, despite the initial instructions of Koumoundourou.
