SYRIZA on the brink of implosion
A few weeks before the convening of the party’s crucial Central Committee and just a few days after an incident-packed meeting of the Political Secretariat, the situation within main opposition SYRIZA appears to be heading toward a climax with the resignation on Monday of a senior member of the party’s European Parliament group.
In the open letter of resignation to party leader Stefanos Kasselakis, Stelios Kouloglou said that “the situation that has developed in the party lacks seriousness.”
Moreover, he took aim at the promotion of Kasselakis’ personal life during the party’s election period.
“The public debate revolved around your personal life and not around your political proposals,” he stressed, while also taking issue with the way Stefanos Tzoumakas was expelled from the party last week, as well as the first announcement of SYRIZA regarding the developments in Gaza.
In comments to Open TV, Kouloglou said, “There is about to be a second war in Europe and I would like the president of SYRIZA to take international initiatives.”
“[Prime Minister Kyriakos] Mitsotakis went to Egypt. The leader of the opposition should also go to Rafah, Egypt, to take initiatives. Instead, he is in the US and has even informed us that he got married,” he said.
In response, SYRIZA sources said Kouloglou must “hand over the seat to the party with which he was elected.”
They said Kouloglou “has a history of public controversies at crucial moments, damaging to the party with which he was elected.”
SYRIZA’s internal strife began with the double electoral defeat in the May and June elections, intensified after Alexis Tsipras’ resignation from the presidency, and escalated with the election of Kasselakis in September.
These symptoms of an implosion were also reflected, apart from Kouloglou’s resignation, by the statement, also on Monday, of leading party figure and former MP Nikos Filis that he intends to raise the issue of leadership.
