A call for a new leadership election in main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, which party leader Stefanos Kasselakis had proposed be held on March 10, was ultimately voted down during SYRIZA’s Congress on Sunday.
“…enough. The masks have fallen, we are not going to elections. We are going forward,” Kasselakis said after the vote.
The decision was made by delegates holding up their cards in support of a joint proposal submitted by SYRIZA-PA Parliamentary Group President Sokratis Famellos, together with Nikos Pappas and Giorgos Tsipras, to not hold a leadership election and for the congress to reaffirm its confidence in the party president.
“Today we are here with the members of SYRIZA, the grassroots base is here with democratically elected representatives, and we have a great possibility of solving the big issues,” Famellos said, adding that they had taken the responsibility with Pappas and Tsipras to submit “a very simple but very important political proposal”.
“We propose to hold a vote, before anything else that follows, on the following: The party must not enter into a new cycle of inwardness. There is no need for a new election of president. The congress confirms its confidence in President Stefanos Kasselakis, we go united to the next political and electoral battles, starting with that of the European Parliament elections. With a new political operation, all of us bound by the charter and our proclamation for the interests of society and the country. With comradeship, collectiveness and using the positions and decisions of the fourth congress, we reconstitute the executive bureau with regular operation to boost our political action, which we authorise to process the proposals for completing the transformation of our party…It is a proposal that takes the party forward, which takes the left and society forward and keeps us all united,” Famellos said.
Earlier, Kasselakis had addressed the congress calling for “clean solutions” and a leadership election on March 10 “so that the winner has time for the difficult battle of the European elections, for an open horizon to the national elections, to put together the deeply wounded SYRIZA without backstabbing, without suffocating deadlines, without intermediate deadlines, without arbitrary conditions.”
Parliament Vice-President Olga Gerovasili, who on Saturday had announced her willingness to take up the challenge and stand against him for the party’s leadership, had countered by saying that if he withdrew his challenge to the party to find him a rival, “we stop here” and commented: “Now, if you want elections in 10 days…have them yourself and see what you get.”
Kasselakis replied to Gerovasili, asking her to withdraw her candidacy so the matter might be dropped, to which Gerovasili responded by saying that it was up to the congress to decide and that she was not the one who proposed new elections.
The matter was then put to a vote through the Famellos-Pappas-Tsipras proposal, which passed and the congress is continuing with voting on the positions.
(amna.gr)