Kasselakis slams central committee for blocking candidacy, vows to fight back at party congress
Ousted SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis took to social media on Monday to criticize the left-wing party’s central committee after it voted over the weekend to bar him from running as a candidate in the upcoming leadership election.
“The minority of a body’s members prevented the legally elected party president from standing as a candidate again,” Kasselakis said in a video posted online, calling the decision “unprecedented in the country’s history” and “shocking in the history of the Left.”
Out of 152 central committee members, 138 voted not to accept Kasselakis’ candidacy on Saturday. The central committee has 293 members, but Kasselakis’ supporters in it decided to boycott the meeting hoping there wouldn’t be a quorum.
He also vowed to retaliate at next month’s party congress, urging his supporters to become “a great wave of democracy that will sweep away all these mechanisms.”
As Kasselakis struggles to maintain influence within the party, his hopes now hinge on gaining control of a majority of congress delegates – a scenario analysts view as unlikely – in an effort to overturn the central committee’s recent vote of no confidence that led to his ousting.
