Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, the man who sold the SYRIZA party to Stefanos Kasselakis just over six months ago, pulled a huge prank on him just an hour before the party’s congress began on Thursday night.
Tsipras urged him to seek a vote of confidence from party members. Almost the former leader of SYRIZA challenged the current leader of the party, showing him the “way out.” In a written statement to FacebookYes, Tsipras called on Kasselakis ask for a vote of confidence not from the political secretariat, but from all SYRIZA members. “I think this is the only clean, honest and democratic solution to the Gordian knot that has arisen before us,” – Tsipras said in his speech.
The former prime minister’s intervention came just hours after leader Kasselakis removed one of his main critics in the party, Dionysius Temponeras, from his position as scientific adviser to the parliamentary group.
Two days ago, Temponeras forced Kasselakis to abandon provocations against party members and stressed that the leader is not “monarch”which makes its own decisions, ignoring the political secretariat of the party, officials and members.
In a speech shortly before the 4th Congress, Alexis Tsipras stated: “The President clearly raised the issue of trust in his person at a meeting of the political secretariat the day before yesterday. And I believe that he did it fairly. He was elected without having time to formulate his positions and a detailed plan. To lead the party into the coming [европейскую] election campaign, he must be sure that at this critical moment he enjoys the confidence of the majority. Only a vote of confidence should be asked from those who elected him president, and not from the political secretariat. Instead of dragging ourselves into a protracted crisis that will definitely lead to a new electoral decline, the only way out is to once again give the floor to those who have maintained and continue to maintain the positions of our party and faction: our members.”.
The former president of SYRIZA-PS also noted that he cannot remain silent and participate “at a conference that was designed to ignore critical issues in the name of false optimism. A conference where we would all pretend to be loved and the public would applaud us. No. Personally, I won’t miss a step or applause. Now is not the time for applause, but for telling the truth.”
At another point, Tsipras noted: “We don’t care if the crisis in SYRIZA creates the conditions for a lack of opposition, uncontrolled governance and therefore, ultimately, a crisis of democracy. And this indifference concerns not one, but many.”
Stressing that the picture SYRIZA conveys is that they are not concerned with the main problems that society currently faces, he noted:
“We seem to have turned our backs on society, although we constantly talk about the need to strengthen our ties with it. There is an internal struggle, which is more aimed at personal expediency and less at society. The phenomena of selfishness, narcissism, violation of the principles of collectivism and camaraderie paralyzed the party organization.”
As a result, the image is conveyed that we are indifferent to society and the outcome of the upcoming elections. We do not care if the crisis in SYRIZA creates the conditions for a lack of opposition, uncontrolled governance and, ultimately, a crisis of democracy. And this indifference concerns not just one, but many.
The losers in the internal party elections have already left the party because they lost the fight for its leadership. Regardless of whether with a few coins, the one who wins is our political opponent. It is believed that the winner is asking for a three-year blank check, regardless of the outcome of the European elections. Thus, the electoral failure is discounted and its consequences are ignored.
While others argue in the background, but silently wait for the failure of the elections to blame it on him. Regardless of what it will mean for the party and the country,” – Tsipras emphasized.
Kasselakis’s first reaction: sCiting sources from Kasselakis’s camp, the media report that two hours before the start of the congress, the leader called Tsipras’s intervention “anti-institutional” and “unfair to say the least.”
From the convention site at the Taekwondo Stadium in southern Athens, reporters say many delegates have arrived “smiling”and already three names are named as favorites against Kasselakis: Temponeras, Famelos and Gerovassili.
Alexis Tsipras had planned to give a speech at the convention on Saturday but canceled it. For Stefanos Kasselakis, who caused a huge stir over the weekend with his arrogant attitude towards party members, even his close supporters, there is no choice but to seek a vote of confidence and he is likely to lose, opening the way to new leadership elections.
Bookmakers are already placing bets on when Kasselakis will leave the post of Secretary General of Syriza, and evil tongues are counting how much money he lost on this.
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