Photo: avgi.gr
Days before the official announcement of early elections, the date of which also remains to be defined, the radical left SYRIZA is about to disintegrate.
It all started after 25 SYRIZA MPs disaffiliated from it and joined Popular Unity, the newly formed party of former minister and leader of the Left Platform in SYRIZA Panagiotis Lafazanis. Commentators argue that it already controls almost a third of SYRIZA.
Although she has not yet left SYRIZA, parliament speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou openly opposes the party leadership, claiming that it has betrayed the programme with which the party won the elections in January and being hostile to those MPs who are still firmly behind it.
Due to disagreement with the decision of Alexis Tsipras to conclude an agreement with creditors to Greece, thus forcing the majority of lawmakers to vote for the adoption of the third and toughest memorandum of financial assistance, SYRIZA secretary Tasos Koronakis resigned yesterday. According to sources, he accused the group close to Tsipras of having totally ignored the party in taking important decisions.
Hours later, spouses Theodoros Dritsas and Tasia Christodoulopoulou, respectively ministers of shipping and migration policy in the office of SYRIZA and Independent Greeks, announced they would not run in the forthcoming elections.
Both Koronakis and they are members of the group of 53 in SYRIZA. It is an internal organization, "laboratory", of leading party officials, which also includes Minister of Finance Efklidis Tsakalotos, former government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis and other prominent party officials.
Yesterday, a text by composer and singer Stathis Drogosis appeared on social networks to inform that he would leave SYRIZA. "Tsipras did not trust his party. He preferred it to play a decorative role, thus creating a small group with which to govern.
But it would be good if at least he himself had a plan. Be it a right one though. We experimented on the shoulders of Greek people. We closed banks. We called a referendum (I supported it, but for other reasons), which was actually ridiculous. And while people were brave and closed their ears to the cries of parrots (the journalists from traditional media - author’s note), Tsipras deserted to the positive vote within a few hours. Because of its inability, the economic team of SYRIZA worsened the situation in the country within six months. Yes, comrades, I believe we have brought the worst memorandum to the country and increased unemployment.
I could have swallowed all these things. I could have stayed in the party and fought. Unfortunately, there are many other dark spots.
Assuming that signing an agreement was the only way out, why had we separated the people all these years? Why should Samaras (former Prime Minister and leader of New Democracy) be a traitor and Dragasakis (Deputy Prime Minister and coordinator of economic policy in the office of Tsipras) not? Why didn’t we take the turn earlier? Why didn’t we resort to the rupture (with creditors - author’s note) earlier? Why didn’t we do anything about corruption in the course of seven months? Why do the systemic media support us?" reads the status, manifesto, of the musician.
At least three members have opposed the change in the politics of SYRIZA since last week and announced that their names will not appear in the party ballots. A mass withdrawal from SYRIZA is expected to take place in the coming days and the prevailing opinions are that the SYRIZA party known to date no longer exists, its leader Alexis Tsipras being criticized for that.
According to sources, the members of the group of 53 will meet in Thessaloniki tomorrow to decide to leave the party bodies of SYRIZA together and even to join Lafazanis’ party.
The position of SYRIZA’s youth organization is anticipated with interest too, as the majority of its members openly opposed the memorandum whereas some of them support Greece's exit from the European Union.