Pivotal meeting for SYRIZA leadership
The leadership developments in the SYRIZA party are coming to a head on Saturday, when the meeting of the Central Committee will take place.
The party is beset by division and it is still reeling in the wake of two devastating defeats in a row – Mitsotakis’ New Democracy party defeated SYRIZA 40.56% to 17.83% on June 25, the party.
The defeat precipitated the resignation of Alexis Tsipras, who led the party for 15 years and became Greek prime minister between 2015 and 2019.
Saturday’s meeting will see all the presidential candidates put their cards on the table.
This did not happen at Monday’s meeting of the Political Secretariat, despite the fact that the candidacies of former labor minister Efi Achtsioglou and Nikos Pappas, a former digital policy minister, are reportedly already a dead cert.
Indeed, 38-year-old Achtsioglou could reportedly even announce her candidacy before Saturday. She is usually thought to be on the party’s left wing, but appears ready to ditch the label.
Euclid Tsakalotos, a former finance minister, and Pavlos Polakis, a former health minister, will shape the correlations with the final decisions they take.
According to reports, the overwhelming majority within SYRIZA wants there to be three to four candidates, so that all trends within the party are recorded. This will help the dialogue, mobilize SYRIZA’s forces and bring more people to the polls.
The regrouping of trends is a fact after Tsipras’ resignation and according to many in SYRIZA this may be a positive element from the prolonged period of turmoil that has emerged which has seen the different wings within the party show signs of splitting up, with no clear-cut division between the moderates and radicals.
Disagreement remains within the party over when the election of a new party leader will take place.
