“My dream is to become the next prime minister for all Greeks – both inside and outside the country, but my faith is first and foremost in the people who accepted me and promoted me,” said Stefanos Kasselakis, leader of the main opposition, leftist party SYRIZA, speaking at the Economist’s 27th annual government roundtable in Athens on Thursday.
I was elected, by a wide margin, as an outsider in the primary race, who won the working-class neighborhoods and the rural areas.
And that is the most telling part of my position today – that those left out of the so-called system, saw in me a modern fighter for not just their… pic.twitter.com/ly4FZaSXfb
— Stefanos Kasselakis – Στέφανος Κασσελάκης (@skasselakis) October 27, 2023
Speaking about his own trajectory, he noted that “Two months after Alexis decided to leave, I announced my candidacy as his successor.” He added: “I was not a party member and did not fit the profile of the traditional left, [будучи] an employee of Goldman Sachs and a former businessman and shipping company executive.”
“But I was elected,” he noted, saying that Syriza members voted for him as the new leader of the party, “by a large margin, as an “outsider” in the leadership race, who won both in working-class neighborhoods and in rural areas.”
And this, he noted, “The most characteristic part of my current position: those who remained outside the so-called system saw in me a modern fighter not only for their own interests, but also for the collective future of the country.”
Kasselakis stressed that he will be on the side of the people “struggling to pay their electricity bills, yearning for their children to return to Greece, drowning in piles of mud after the recent floods and receiving meager government support.”
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