Kasselakis is new SYRIZA leader
Stefanos Kasselakis, 35, has won the contest for the leadership of the left-wing, main opposition SYRIZA party.
The party’s election commission announced, at 11 p.m., that, with 70% of the voting precincts reporting, Kasselakis leads his rival, 38-year-old Effie Achtsioglou, 56.65% to 43.35%.
Achtsioglou has already called Kasselakis to congratulate him on his victory, media reported.
A total of 133,261 out of about 188,000 eligible SYRIZA members voted, fewer than the 146,000 who turned up for the first round last Sunday.
The vote follows a week of tensions between Kasselakis (44.91% in the first round) and Achtsioglou (36.18%), with disagreements often getting personal.
Of the three eliminated candidates, Euclid Tsakalotos (8.92%), representing the most left-wing grouping within the party and veteran former socialist Stefanos Tzoumakas (1.28%) backed Achtsioglou, while Nikos Pappas supported Kasselakis.
Outgoing leader Alexis Tsipras, who voted shortly after 5 p.m. declared that, whoever emerges as the winner, the party will remain unified and offer an alternative to ruling conservative New Democracy.
Kasselakis’ candidacy has rankled with the traditional party members, who cannot stomach the fact that he had no relationship with the party until he stood as a candidate on the country-wide list in the May and June election, far enough down the list that he had no chance of being elected MP. They accuse him of indulging in a sort of shallow, media-friendly, “post-politics” to attract voters. On the other hand, some Kasselakis supporters accuse Achtsioglou of undermining Tsipras’ leadership, a charge she has vehemently denied.
Electing a youthful leader will not be a first for SYRIZA: both candidates are older than Tsipras when he was elected in 2008, at the age of 34.
