Under SYRIZA‘s party statutes, the Central Committee must be convened within the next 15 days — by July 11 — following the submission of two documents bearing 73 signatures that call for a renewed debate on the party’s electoral strategy. Sources indicate that the minority faction does not intend to table a motion of no confidence against SYRIZA’s leader. However, they believe he should resign, given that he has placed the party in a deeply difficult position.
In any case, they make clear that what must be discussed on the 11th is who the party will partner with electorally. According to these sources, potential allies could include New Left, Nikos Kotzias, and Louka Katseli — provided she abandons her ambition to act as a mediator between PASOK and Alexis Tsipras’s ELAS — as well as other left-wing forces. They also note that Sokratis Famellos would evidently not lead such a coalition.
Tomorrow morning, SYRIZA’s Executive Secretariat is scheduled to convene. According to reports, Sokratis Famellos is expected to confirm the party’s change of course with regard to Tsipras and will insist on cooperation with any progressive forces willing to engage. He is anticipated to say: “SYRIZA has not closed its chapter.”
Despite the SYRIZA leader’s apparent shift on the question of alliances, fury among minority faction members continues to simmer. Their argument is that the party leader allowed too much time to pass, resulting in the party — headquartered at Koumoundourou — losing significant credibility. They also point out that the balance of power within the Central Committee has shifted considerably, and that nothing can be ruled out.
Famellos changes course: “The Central Committee never said SYRIZA was shutting down”
It is worth recalling that Sokratis Famellos’s change of direction came through Anastasia Sapouna, who is currently serving as acting Secretary and who, in a Friday interview expressing Famellos’s views, stated: “SYRIZA has never said it will not participate in the next elections. How we approach that going forward will be decided by the party’s governing bodies.”
She further stressed: “In the same decision, the Central Committee did not say the party was dissolving itself. It never said we were shutting down. We are fully active. The parliamentary group is functioning. Yesterday the Political Secretariat met. At that meeting we put forward the question of how to update our programme and how to approach the Thessaloniki International Fair. SYRIZA has never said it will not participate in the next elections. How we move forward will be decided by the appropriate bodies. We also never said that party organs would stop convening and functioning. Yesterday we also decided to reactivate the Executive Bureau,” said Anastasia Sapouna, with the full agreement of the party leader.
This statement marks a significant shift, as until recently the leader’s position had been that SYRIZA would support Alexis Tsipras’s party in the elections. Meanwhile, over the weekend, minority faction members signed two documents calling for the convening of the Central Committee, with the broader aim of challenging the SYRIZA leader’s position. Of course, 73 signatures alone are not sufficient to mount a formal challenge — far more would be needed, given that the party’s top governing body comprises approximately 287 members, accounting for the resignations that have occurred in recent months.
Nevertheless, Famellos’s change of stance and Sapouna’s statement — that “we now have a different position that clarifies things on Mr. Tsipras’s part. In this context, if convergence, osmosis, or 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 dialogue. Mr. Tsipras, with whom we served in government as SYRIZA — and we are all enormously proud of the 2015–19 period, whether we served in smaller or larger roles of political responsibility, and we will never disown what we achieved — was clear, and the answer he gave is entirely respected” — all of this signals that those at Koumoundourou are now actively thinking about how to contest the elections and with whom.
Of course, the question remains: why did it take so long for Sokratis Famellos to accept that Alexis Tsipras’s “no” was genuine and not merely a communications strategy.
