Syriza has suffered another split and is now a much smaller party. Stefanos Kasselakis, the successor to Alexis Tsipras as president of Syriza, was not only ousted from his position by a newly formed majority at the Central Committee, but also barred from taking part in the leadership election. After mobilizing his supporters to impose his candidacy on the party, including by organizing a mass protest outside of the venue where the party Congress took place between November 8 and 10, Kasselakis left the party along with some members of parliament and has gone on to found his own party, called Movement of Democracy, which has five members of parliament.
As a result of MPs following Kasselakis or simply leaving Syriza, Pasok has now replaced Syriza as the main party of opposition in the Greek Parliament. At the same time, the party is plummeting in the polls. Syriza — which in the meantime elected a new leader, Sokratis Famellos — is currently polling at around 6-7 percent. To make things even more complex, it seemed that within the current “base” of Syriza, significantly reduced because of the party crisis, there was a current in favor of Kasselakis, a man with no background within the Left who was, despite his populist rhetoric, unsuccessful in increasing the popularity of Syriza.
This crisis marks the political end of the road for Syriza. They have lost almost all their political capital and become a much smaller party, tormented by internal strife. Already Pasok, the socialist party, is faring much better than Syriza at the polls, having secured second place, albeit at a significant distance from the ruling New Democracy party.
How has a party that almost a decade ago won an election come so close to political irrelevance? Looking at the trajectory of Syriza can explain how this outcome became possible. Syriza was catapulted to a central position on the Greek political scene not…
Auteur: Panagiotis Sotiris
