Things have been turned upside down within SYRIZA, after the party’s deputy secretary of the Central Committee, Anastasia Sapouna, expressing the views of Socrates Famellos, appeared to distance herself from the scenario of the Koumoundourou party supporting Alexis Tsipras’ ELAS, while at the same time signaling openness toward PASOK for electoral cooperation.
SYRIZA: The opening toward PASOK and electoral cooperation scenarios
“Politically and programmatically — and we will see how this develops in the future — we have a great many common points not only with Alexis Tsipras’ ELAS, but also with N. Androulakis’ PASOK, for example,” she stated pointedly. Anastasia Sapouna’s remarks came to confirm the scenarios circulating in recent weeks, suggesting that an informal channel of communication exists between Socrates Famellos and Nikos Androulakis, with the aim of forging electoral cooperation.
SYRIZA: “We’re not shutting down — we will contest the elections”
Based on Anastasia Sapouna’s statements, SYRIZA will participate in the next elections, as she made clear: “SYRIZA has never said it will not participate in the next elections. How exactly we will do so will be seen in due course — there are party bodies that will decide on that.” She further stressed: “In that same decision, the Central Committee did not say the party is dissolving itself. It never said we are shutting down. We are fully active in the political arena. There is a parliamentary group. Yesterday the Political Secretariat convened. At that meeting, we put on the table the question of how to update our programme and how we will approach the Thessaloniki International Fair. SYRIZA has never said it will not participate in the next elections. How we do so will be decided in due course by the appropriate party bodies. Furthermore, we never said that party organs would stop convening and functioning. Yesterday we also decided that the Executive Bureau would resume its operations.”
Referring to Alexis Tsipras’ position — who has repeatedly made clear he will not cooperate with political parties but only with individual figures — the deputy secretary said: “We now have a different statement from Mr. Tsipras that clarifies things. In this environment, if a convergence, an osmosis, a process that would allow for something more cannot move forward, we will obviously not abandon the strategy we have chosen. We tried to build a bridge for political understanding. Mr. Tsipras — yesterday — with whom we served in government, as SYRIZA (and we are all extremely proud of the 2015–2019 period, whether we participated in smaller roles or in positions of greater political responsibility, and we will never disown any of what we achieved) — was clear, and the answer he gave is fully respected. I don’t think there is any remaining question mark after his statement yesterday. I cannot dispute what Alexis Tsipras said with absolute clarity on television.”
Sapouna, a close associate of Alexis Tsipras, also dropped something of a bombshell when she indirectly referenced cooperation with PASOK. “Politically and programmatically — and we will see how this develops in the future — we have a great many common points not only with Alexis Tsipras’ ELAS, but also with N. Androulakis’ PASOK, for example. In my personal view, across 70–80% of all these parties that want to politically represent in parliament the broader left-wing, progressive, democratic current, there are very many points of convergence,” she stated emphatically.
