“I think that everything will be put on the table” said Andreas Xanthos, former Minister of Health under SYRIZA, when asked in the First Program if the question of leadership will be raised in the internal party debates after the June 25 elections.

More specifically, Mr. Xanthos noted that it is not possible to discuss now what moves the party will make in the long term, as a distance from the current situation is required, even if the electoral cycle has been completed with the holding of the next elections , of June 25, however he characteristically said “I believe that after such a negative result no one can say that ‘this is a taboo subject, I don’t discuss it'”.

“However, I believe that the crucial issue is mainly the identity, the physiognomy and the strategy. Now for the medium term, for the immediate run up to the elections, I think we need to make our programmatic peaks and priorities much clearer. In other words, in this period we must not address ourselves in terms of a national audience, but go and focus mainly on groups, social strata which are struggling today and have proven to be under pressure and are insecure in their daily lives and especially in the economic part. To highlight the priorities related to the welfare state, to the public health system, to the reconstruction of the public administration, to the removal of the customer culture in the state,” he added.

Tomorrow with the meeting of the Central Committee, an effort will be made, Mr. Xanthos said, to condense this climate “into a restart that can be done, any restart that can be done these days, with a clarity in the programmatic and political discourse”.

Regarding Mr. Papadimoulis’ proposal to frame the president of SYRIZA as the 25th elections, with a new generation of executives who distinguished themselves at the polls, Mr. Xanthou’s opinion is that this discussion “is out of place and time”.

“Obviously we will go to the elections with the current leadership. Whether there will be a better utilization of some persons, who also proved their capabilities and reach in the pre-election period, is another discussion. But I think that in this period there can be no question of realignment of the leadership team or anything else. Alexis Tsipras will be in charge,” he added.

Mr. Xanthos pointed out that there is a need for programmatic clarity, mobilization and solidarity, while underlining “those who prescribe that SYRIZA has paid off and prioritize its electoral looting, will be refuted”.

“And also those who believe that Mitsotakis’s victory only affects SYRIZA, they are really laughing. In my opinion, the victory, especially with these very high percentages of New Democracy and Mr. Mitsotakis, signals a deeper conservative shift in society. This is something that does not concern only SYRIZA. It concerns the left and progressive forces more broadly,” he added.

Although it is too early, he noted, to make an overall assessment of the unfavorable result for SYRIZA, Mr. Xanthos expressed the assessment that the party’s narrative on the governance of the country was not convincing.

“It did not give a prospect of a stable and realistically, let’s say cooperative government, since that was supposed to be the central point of contention. On the one hand we had the New Democracy line of self-reliance in the name of political stability and on the other a new model of governance which would use the democratic tool of simple proportionality to ensure wider collaborations. This thing was not convincing given the obviously negative attitude of the other potential partners in such a government scheme” he pointed out.

In addition, he argued that the great mass of undecided people were many more than those who caught the polls’ radars.

“In other words, this muted climate, which we all received and found out in our tours with the world, I believe was hiding a very large volume of undecided people, who at the last moment, obviously and with the influence of mistakes and failures that occurred in the pre-election period, conspired to this mass of undecided people go en masse and support the New Democracy.

Asked whether SYRIZA remains the hegemonic party in the center-left, he replied that this will be decided.

“Today it still has the primacy and has an increased specific weight” characteristically said Mr. Xanthos and expressed the belief that there will be a regrouping of forces in the coming days in SYRIZA “which will prove that it is a faction, which like all great historical factions have both social foundations and endurance and can respond to difficulties and manage crises, enlisting the collective dignity of the people of the area, their members”.