End of an era for SYRIZA in an explosive climate

The second split from SYRIZA in almost two weeks caused, as expected, more noise than the first as the main opposition party is embroiled in the most difficult phase of its history.

A faction led by former labor minister Effie Achtsioglou, known as “6+6,” announced on Thursday its departure from SYRIZA, further weakening the leftist party now under the leadership of newcomer Stefanos Kasselakis.

The 57 members of the faction include nine members of Parliament.

SYRIZA now counts 36 MPs, while those who departed from the party and sit in Parliament as independents have risen to 11.

The first major split within the party occurred on Monday with the departure of the “Umbrella” faction, led by former finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos. On Monday, Tsakalotos hinted at the possibility of forming a new parliamentary group separate from SYRIZA, in cooperation with Achtsiglou’s 6+6.

The nine lawmakers of Achtsioglou’s group, along with Tsakalotos and another MP who left SYRIZA, Peti Perka, would provide the minimum number of parliamentarians required to form a new party.

Achtsioglou’s group is scheduled to meet at the weekend in order to ratify the accession of Tsakalotos and Perka, so that the new party can be formed with 11 MPs. In this way they are given the opportunity by the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure to form a new parliamentary group, with the aim of having a presence in the budget debate.

Thursday’s departures followed the mass resignation on Wednesday of 90 members of the Human Rights Sector of SYRIZA and the majority of its secretariat.

For his part, Kasselakis appeared unfazed Thursday, saying that “today we are closing the cycle of introversion.”

“United we will focus on producing political solutions for society,” he said during a meeting of SYRIZA’s Political Secretariat in the wake of the departures of the nine MPs of Achtsioglou’s group.

However, apart from the reduction of its parliamentary group, SYRIZA is bleeding everywhere. Another 57 members left the Central Committee on Thursday, in addition to the departure of 50 Umbrella members. 

The members that have left in mass over the last weeks have dismissed the party they are leaving as a “patchwork of contradictory views,” while the leadership has stressed they will be “judged by history.”