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The withdrawal of a candidate for deputy some days before the elections on Sunday has caused sharp responses inside SYRIZA and anxiety among party’s voters.

The person concerned is Nikos Hanias, who was the candidate of SYRIZA in Corinth. In a letter to the secretary of the party, he rejected the tactics it adopted after the 6 May elections, defining it as dangerous for the Greeks and the future of the country.

"I am convinced that if SYRIZA governed for even an hour it would be disastrous for Greece and the future of our children," he wrote.

In his address to his recent "comrades," Nikos Hanias wrote, "It is immoral and unfair to take advantage of the just anger and disgust of society in relation to the rotten and corrupt two-party system, putting at risk our future and relying on a nonexistent probability that our lenders are bluffing, without offering anything for the opposite development, knowing that your maximalist and surreal positions do not correspond to reality."

The retired officer from the Fire Service Nikos Hanias was a member of the PASOK associated fire-fighters union in Corinth. He became a member of SYRIZA in 2009 and although he has "divorced" the party, he claims that he is true to its principles.

"I think SYRIZA was entangled in a deadlock, which it itself has created. Assuming that it would implement its promise to cancel the Memorandum, this could lead to excluding Greece from the euro area or to its voluntary exit. This is something that neither the citizens nor SYRIZA want to happen. Things are contradictory. Assuming that it would implement the second scenario, i.e. that it would try to renegotiate the Memorandum, then the party would be forced to implement a new Memorandum within which it would have to give more moderate election promises. It is thus deceiving the people, who believe in the party and set their hope for tomorrow on the party."

Nikos Hanias argued that the "turn" in SYRIZA’s positions was made after the elections on 6 May. "My opinion was that the specific policies put at risk the future of the country and I said it. Criticism cannot be selective. At the same time, we saw a number of contradictions in the statements party representatives had made in various media. I wonder how some think of Greece for the coming on Sunday and do not think about how it will be on Monday."

SYRIZA reacted sharply to Nikos Hanias’ letter and wondered what had changed his views a few days before the elections. Party secretary Dimitris Vitsas hinted that the recent candidate for deputy was dissatisfied with the order of names in the party ballot in Corinth.

"It was an inexplicable and immoral act, unbecoming to a deputy, especially to a man, saying that he is an active citizen of left belief."

Nikos Hanias said in turn he was impressed "by the sharp reaction from a political space of so many different opinions inside and when even its leader himself had become Minister of PASOK in the past."A week ago, I sent a letter to Mr. Vitsas, in which I quite simply expressed my political concerns for which I could not participate in SYRIZA. My tone was by no means hostile. I never got a significant response to that letter. It appears that it suits SYRIZA to reply, as it likes. In the democracy in which we live, there is the right to a different opinion. If SYRIZA has a different opinion about democracy it should say so."