Kasselakis calls for SYRIZA referendum to expel leading members
SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis has called on the main opposition party to hold an internal referendum on the expulsion of “four party members who brutally insulted all of us.”
In a social message addressed to the “Greek people” and the “large majority in the country who want an alternative solution to the Mitsotakis-Voridis-Velopoulos government,” Kasselakis vowed he would “not back down” in the face of internal party opposition.
Kasselakis, who was elected as leader in a direct vote by the membership, said he would ask the SYRIZA central committee, which will meet on Saturday, to back “a referendum directly among the members and friends of the party for the removal of the four party members who brutally insulted all of us.”
In October, Kasselakis announced he was expelling Nikos Filis, Panos Skourletis, Dimitris Vitsas and Stefanos Tzoumakas from the party.
“If the central committee refuses, I will proceed with a referendum at the request of 15 percent of SYRIZA members, exactly as our statutes provide,” he said, in his accouncement.
“On the night of my election, I repeated one phrase three times: I will never betray you. And I repeat this now, more decisively than ever. We will make Greece a modern, European country. Together, and no one will stop us.”
On Friday, Skourletis and Nikos Voutsis, a former parliamentary speaker, announced their resignations from the party on the grounds that the new leaders was abandoning leftwing principles. [AMNA, Kathimerini]
