SYRIZA senior members slam party leader over expulsion notice
Three senior members of the main opposition have slammed an overnight decision by SYRIZA’s new leader to expel them for openly criticising his views, saying that it is up to the party’s ethics committee to push out members.
SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis announced late Monday he was expelling Nikos Filis, Panos Skourletis and Dimitris Vitsas, all former ministers, for acting as “TV sponsors” of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The move came as all three have repeatedly accused Kasselakis on media of lacking a clear political ideology. The publication, earlier this week, of articles he wrote about a decade ago and which recommended policies blasted by the Greek left as neo-liberal, redoubled their criticism.
“I am a member of SYRIZA. Mr Kasselakis cannot take away my status. There are procedures and statutes,” Filis told Open TV on Tuesday. “Mr Kasselakis should respect the statute. ‘Dismissing,’ expelling [members] from the US via Twitter is not the way a party functions.”
“In our party we do not remove different opinions. We have a congress before us which, it seems, will take place without the people who hold different views, since he vilifies them and expels them,” he continued, adding that there is “a mission to dissolve SYRIZA by extra-political actors.”
On his side, Skourletis accused Kasselakis of hiding his past political views. “The election of Kasselakis is a disgrace…SYRIZA risks being discredited and ridiculed,” he told broadcaster Kontra24. He said that “if this course continues, SYRIZA will become a center-right, lifeless party. If there is such a course, we will be against it.”
Vitsas told Ant1 TV that, in order to be expelled from SYRIZA, the decision will have to be voted by a two-thirds majority in the ethics committee and be approved by the party’s central committee.
“I can coexist with Kasselakis. However, the terms must be fair. Does it make sense to co-exist in a party where the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head?” he said.
