SYRIZA MP criticizes party chief, points to potential challenger

SYRIZA MP and member of the political secretariat, the top executive of the leftist opposition, Costas Zachariadis, has criticized the stance of party chief Stefanos Kasselakis, as expressed on the opening day of the party’s congress, as divisive, while pointing to Olga Gerovasili as a potential challenger to his leadership.

Gerovasili, a former minister of citizen protection, is a close associate of former prime minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras and led a revolt against the current president earlier this week.

“There will certainly be a rival candidacy against Kasselakis,” Zachariadis told Antenna TV on Friday, before mentioning her name.

On Thursday, it was Kasselakis who challenged his in-party rivals to field a candidate for a new leadership contest in an impassioned and aggressive speech at the congress.

“Find me an opponent. Find me an opponent and let’s go,” he declared in remarks apparently prompted by a rare intervention from Tsipras earlier in the day, who suggested that his embattled successor, widely blamed for intra-party divisions and low ratings, seek renewal of his mandate from the party base.

In his comments on Friday, Zachariadis welcomed Tsipras’ intervention and criticized Kasselakis’ confrontational stance.

“We are not enemies; we are comrades. This is an apolitical approach. We shall not turn our party into an arena,” he said.

He noted that since Kasselakis took over SYRIZA, the party had declined both politically and in opinion polls.

“SYRIZA today is politically and organizationally depleted,” Zachariadis said.

Kasselakis’ main rivals in the leadership race in September 2023, including former labor minister Effie Archtioglou and former finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos, have in the meantime left the party to form a splinter group called New Left.