“Given the political climate taking shape around me, I am choosing to withdraw my candidacy for the presidency of our Parliamentary Group,” said Pavlos Polakis — a move that leaves Rena Dourou as the sole candidate for the leadership of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group. “From the bottom of my heart, I would once again like to thank the people who have supported me all these years,” Polakis added.
Pavlos Polakis’s full statement
The following is Pavlos Polakis’s full statement on his withdrawal from the race for the leadership of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group:
“In November 2024, having received nearly 44% of the vote in the election to choose a new president of SYRIZA-PS, I refused to drag our people into a second round. At the time, I made that decision because I felt we could not afford that luxury.
In a spirit of comradeship, I accepted Socrates Famellos’s victory. I expressed no bitterness over the arrogant — and certainly uncomradely — choices he made regarding the staffing of the party’s governing bodies, and I continued the work I had been doing alongside my colleagues in the Transparency Department. Once again, our collective efforts produced results — the resignation of Lazaridis being one example.
That remained the case until the party’s ‘inexplicable’ shift and the erratic decision made by the Central Committee last June, when — on the recommendation of now-resigned president Socrates Famellos — we voted to support another party, one that had only just been founded and had not even made its policy positions public. That decision, unique in the entire history of world politics, resulted in a dramatic collapse in SYRIZA-PS’s poll ratings.
Against all expectations, we managed to reverse the plans of those who wanted SYRIZA-PS sidelined from the electoral battle, and through last Saturday’s extraordinary Central Committee session, we secured the party’s autonomy.
Today, I find myself facing yet another difficult decision. I have long made clear that the creation of a progressive front to bring down Mitsotakis can only be built on the foundation of a programmatic convergence — one that redistributes wealth in favour of labour, restores strategic pillars of the economy to public control, repeals the unjust austerity laws, and brings about real change in both the state and the justice system.
Achieving this requires a clear solution on the party’s leadership and a unanimous decision on the election of a parliamentary group president — conditions that, as things stand, do not appear to exist. Some have made other choices.
Are our MPs becoming independent or surrendering their seats — is that a personal decision, or part of a plan? Are the threats of walkouts, should I be given the honour of leading our Parliamentary Group, an expression of comradeship? Can we really afford, in a parliamentary group of just eight people, to have two competing candidacies?
Given the political climate taking shape around me, I am choosing to withdraw my candidacy for the presidency of our Parliamentary Group. From the bottom of my heart, I would once again like to thank the people who have supported me all these years.
P.S. Everything else will be addressed at Saturday’s Central Committee. ‘My path has always been the same, and it always will be… there is no room on my road for others to call the shots.'”
