The president of SYRIZA, Sokratis Famellos, explained yesterday once again his party’s Central Committee decision to support former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s party by essentially not participating in the elections. This decision has sparked major reactions from the party’s minority faction — Pavlos Polakis, Nikos Pappas and Rena Dourou — who refuse to implement this decision and are threatening to challenge the SYRIZA president. Meanwhile, the Central Committee’s decision was also criticized by the majority, with the logic that Famellos’s proposal should have been clearer. The SYRIZA president, yesterday, in an interview with the Economic Post forum, insisted that “we both want and believe that there should be a ballot… We also recognized that Alexis Tsipras’s role is decisive, by decision of the Central Committee, and that this endeavor is positive and we support it. How the discussion will evolve until the elections, allow me to tell you that we will discuss this.”
Regarding the ten-day deadline that minority faction members are giving the SYRIZA president to reach an agreement with Alexis Tsipras, Sokratis Famellos responded: “There are statements from SYRIZA members who submitted other proposals to the Central Committee that were rejected, and they are asking us to implement the proposals that were rejected. These cannot have any basis, because first of all they do not correspond to democratic procedures. We democratically decided something.” Naturally, the climate in SYRIZA is particularly heavy, as party members don’t know how to react. At the same time, MPs appear to want to leave, but they understand that these are difficult times and therefore any move they make will further inflame the climate.
“If a choice is made by Alexis Tsipras, obviously there are many of us who will staff these ballots. If this choice is not made, many of us will support as voters,” Alexandros Meikópoulos said in an interview. Giorgos Gavrilos moved along the same wavelength, stating that “an opposing ballot cannot stand against this endeavor that is starting and seems to be embraced by Greek society.” Nikos Pappas, on the other hand, declared that “if someone believes that the path from now on is a path of personal journeys, personal negotiations and everyone should ‘look, guys, what they will do with themselves, because the collectivity we served is over’, he resigns.”
