SYRIZA MP Polakis regrets backing Kasselakis, outlines leadership vision
SYRIZA MP Pavlos Polakis, who has announced his intention to run for the party leadership in late November, expressed regret for having supported the recently ousted leader Stefanos Kasselakis during the vote that elevated him to the head of the main opposition party.
Kasselakis defeated former labor minister Effie Achtsioglou in a runoff vote last September, following the resignation of former prime minister Alexis Tsipras as party chief. Achtsioglou has since joined a SYRIZA splinter group called New Left.
“Supporting Kasselakis was a mistake,” Polakis, a former alternate health minister, told Open TV on Friday morning. “Last summer, I believed we needed to rebuild SYRIZA after Tsipras’ resignation. I felt that Achtsioglou was not capable of leading SYRIZA’s renewal, and I thought Kasselakis, being intelligent and a young person not entrenched in the system, had ideas with which I largely agreed. Seeing his appeal to young people, I believed he could lead SYRIZA’s reorganization.”
“However, he failed in many respects. First and foremost, he didn’t form a political team. Leftist parties aren’t one-man shows, even though a leader is necessary. With Tsipras, there were functioning institutions, but now we have ended up with a deteriorating mechanism,” Polakis said.
“The excessive focus on his personal life overshadowed many of the good and correct things he said, which were the result of the work of many people,” he added, denouncing criticism that his comments are not driven by “homophobia” against Kasselakis, the country’s first openly gay leader of a mainstream political party.
Polakis also criticized Kasselakis for questioning the political implications of a no-confidence vote over the weekend, which the latter lost. Despite clearing out his office at the party headquarters and seeing all his close aides resign, Kasselakis’ supporters appeared to reverse course late Thursday, arguing that he should remain as president until the party congress in November.
His ousting was later confirmed by a vote of SYRIZA’s political secretariat.
“Kasselakis realized he cannot move forward with creating a new formation, which is why he is behaving this way,” Polakis said. “Isn’t it expected that if a minister faces a motion of censure and it passes, they should resign?” he asked.
In the same interview, Polakis outlined his vision for SYRIZA’s policy program under his potential leadership. He emphasized the need for a program that is both understandable to the public and socially necessary, arguing that it should focus on “the needs of workers” rather than a rights-driven agenda.
His proposed policies include the abolition of Greece’s bailout laws and the re-nationalization of certain enterprises, while also stressing the importance of transparency and justice.
“The country went bankrupt because the political class and the economic oligarchy knew they would remain unpunished,” he said, adding that “a portion of the judiciary was controlled by political power.”
