Serious infighting has erupted out in the hard-left Syriza Party in Greece after its central committee removed Stefanos Kasselakis as its leader.
On September 8, a vote of no confidence was held amid escalating tensions within Syriza. The poll was initiated by the so-called “Group of 87” members, known for their close ties to former prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
Some 163 committee members voted in favour of the motion, 120 opposed it and three votes were invalid.
Reacting to the result, Kasselakis made a short speech on the stage at the party’s central committee meeting, saying: “I am redeemed. Because everyone has seen the censure that I have been facing since the first day I was voted in.
“It is unprecedented in the political history of this country that the party bureaucracy does not accept the vote of the party members from the very first day. That is how I spent a whole year. Now you know it all.
“We have reached the point where the bureaucracy, the party nomenclature and the various factions have resorted to practices that do not belong on the Left, even managing to degrade the esteemed members of the committee by turning them into ‘koukoloforoi‘ [masked agitators].”
“My decisions will be announced where I am accountable and will always be accountable. To the people.”
His remarks regarding koukoloforoi caused uproar among both his supporters and opponents.
Είμαι λυτρωμένος.
Διότι είδαν όλοι οι πολίτες τη μομφή που ζω από την πρώτη μέρα που ψηφίστηκα.Είναι πρωτοφανές στην πολιτική ιστορία του τόπου η κομματική γραφειοκρατία να μην αποδέχεται από την πρώτη κιόλας μέρα τη ψήφο των μελών του κόμματος.
Έτσι πέρασα έναν ολόκληρο… pic.twitter.com/DDXIgboWb5
— Stefanos Kasselakis – Στέφανος Κασσελάκης (@skasselakis) September 8, 2024
Now the party is set to organise elections for a new leader via an extraordinary congress within the next three months.
Kasselakis has not announced he will run but he is expected to do so, given he has popular backing.
The more left-leaning side of the Syriza party have always had issues with their now-deposed leader. He was installed despite being something of an outsider, having worked for Goldman Sachs and previously residing in Miami, Florida. He has Liberal leanings favouring the more Socialist oriented side of the party.
Kasselakis was able to take power in September 2023 after the party suffered major defeats against the centre-right New Democracy (ND) Party. That led to long-term party leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras stepping down, providing an opening for Kasselakis.
He ran as “the only one who can beat [ND leader] Mitsotakis”, engaging in friendly, media-savvy conversations with voters but since then election results and opinion polls have slid significantly for the fractured left-wing party.
Despite this, those surveys have shown Kasselakis’s personal approval ratings are still higher than the party’s overall.
His background as a former Goldman Sachs employee, shipowner and one-time registered Republican in the US raised eyebrows among traditional supporters.
Policy proposals, particularly advocating for employee stock options and lower taxes, sparked controversy within the ranks. Some long-standing party members viewed these positions as a departure from their core ideological principles, and accused him of courting populism.
Candidates for the party’s new presidency are Pavlos Polakis, a controversial MP, and MEP Nikos Farantouris, coincidently a former lawyer at Goldman Sachs.
In November 2023, just a few months after the nomination of Kasselakis as leader, Syriza’s left-wing faction of the party split off.
That group claimed the Syriza leader engaged in “Trumpian practices”, “Bonapartism”, “undemocratic behaviour”, “authoritarianism”, and “right-leaning populism.”
Syriza, Greece’s main opposition party, is splintering as its left-wing faction turns its back on the party. https://t.co/0BoZ46dThs
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 13, 2023
