Tsakalotos to Tsipras: Make some self-criticism first

Euclid Tsakalotos, the former finance minister and one of the 11 MPs who bolted from SYRIZA to create the New Left party, said former leader Alexis Tsipras needed to make his own self-criticism.

Tsakalotos responded Thursday evening with a Facebook posting to Tsipras’ assertion earlier in the day that the New Left “defectors” left when they were defeated in the leadership contest, indifferent to the fact that a fragmentation on the left would help SYRIZA’s adversaries.

“No, my Alexis, we didn’t leave because we lost. We left because we were witnessing our party being vaporized and who can claim, seeing what is transpiring today in SYRIZA, that we were not confirmed in our choice?” Tsakalotos said.

But the former minister, who was long seen as the leader of SYRIZA’s left-wing and the most likely successor to Tsipras, before his candidacy imploded last fall, laid the blame for the present travails of the party squarely at Tsipras’ feet: it all started, he said, with the 2019 election, which New Democracy toppled SYRIZA, but with a relatively small margin (39.9% to 31.5%). Tsakalotos accuses Tsipras of not having a plan to change the party, face the hostile rhetoric emanating from the victorious conservatives and address what he calls SYRIZA’s “credibility deficit.”

He also accuses Tsipras of changing the mode of election of the party leader – direct election by the members, which could show up on election day, pay €2 to register and vote – so that he could have the satisfaction of getting six-figure votes, just like the leaders of New Democracy and PASOK. 

“It was you first who wanted an ‘unmediated’ relationship with the party base, without being answerable to the party structures, creating a party that does not debate politics and ideology,” Tsakalotos noted.

“So, before ‘analyzing’ the reasons some of us left, wouldn’t it be better to start with a modicum of self-criticism? It would be a nice start!,” Tsakalotos ended his posting.