A call to voters to participate in tomorrow’s internal party elections of SYRIZA – PS was addressed by the MP and candidate for the party’s presidency Nikos Pappas, declaring that he is ready to face “the right of Mr. Mitsotakis” and asking “to stop insinuations about splits, deletions and departures of party members”.

In a post he made on his personal Facebook account he wrote:

“Leadership election, then.

A historic moment has arrived for our faction.

Tomorrow we go to the polls.

We are electing a new leadership, after 15 years of the presidency of Alexis Tsipras.

Direct grassroots leadership was decided at the 2022 congress in a process that was tense and highly contested.

It is, however, a justified decision.

The world of the faction gathers, discusses, ponders and decides.

The faction is reconstituted through this participatory process.

I want to thank the fellow candidates for the fact that a level of civilized confrontation was maintained by all.

The different approaches between us are evident.

We should all do more together to make the political discussion on the major problems facing the country more transparent.

Insinuations of splits, deletions and exits should also stop immediately.

The participatory process unites and binds us all.

We have taken a first timid and, unfortunately, incomplete step towards the transformation of the party.

We must complete the transformation. Let’s not be short anymore. Let’s not take steps backwards either.

It turned out that the faction needed a great wave of democracy and participation.

This need is also served by my personal candidacy as a collective effort. We have a clear orientation.

We confirm the identity we have captured since 2019. We are the left-wing progressive democratic faction. Our pluralistic identity runs from the left to the progressive center.

We will not do our political opponents the favor of limiting ourselves and folding back.

We are deeply aware that policies imposed on us hurt specific social categories.

We are admitting this publicly and embarking on a major effort to reconnect with the youth, the wage earners and, above all, the middle class.

We are a patriotic and international force. We defend our history and our contribution to the great patriotic struggles, to the struggles for democracy.

We defend the foreign policy of our government 2015 – 2019. We will not consent, we will not allow it to be destroyed by the behind-the-scenes deals of Mr. Mitsotakis and his private foreign policy.

Through the participation process we also overcome our organizational weaknesses.

We transcend the functions of closed structures that suppressed the collective will of members. There will be no closed doors. We will not be an “oyster” party. Nor, however, will we become a “porridge” party, whose leadership is not accountable anywhere.

The wave of democracy and participation makes us a party of members.

The members will decide on the tactics, the strategy, the ballots, the big issues of the time and also on the leadership. They will control the elected bodies in the implementation of the decisions.

I am ready to take on the responsibility of confronting the right wing of Mr. Mitsotakis.

We ask for a mandate to confront the mechanisms of profiteering, which produce inequalities, in order to meet the expectations of the people.

We have proven that we can. We know how to win. We did it in 2015 as well. I have and we have proven that we can organize the political battle.

Tomorrow we build the lineup. We pave the way to victory.