In the criticism he received from Panos Skourletis, replied Christos Spirtzis, former minister and until recently in charge of SYRIZA’s self-governing affairs in the Political Secretariat of the official opposition, in a lengthy post.

“The time of tolerance of my personal targeting and our broader targeting is over,” says Mr. Spirtzis. “Everyone knows about the undermining, Comrade Panos, and they don’t forget,” he declares.

The Skourletis report

“It is necessary for the institutions (including SYRIZA and PASOK) to discuss it institutionally and to draw up a joint ballot in the European elections,” Mr. Spirtzis had stated, adding that the goal would be “to create a new pole and body through coordinated procedures to hit the conservative winter we’re going through.”

Panos Skourletis spoke of subversion. “The fact that a plan that means leaving SYRIZA from the space of the Left and integrating it into a center-left party is being cynically admitted shows how objectively they undermined SYRIZA in the previous period,” he commented characteristically.

The post of Christos Spirtzis in detail

“I don’t forget and nobody forgets, Comrade Pano…

An old leftist, in the Technical Chamber, who educated many generations of Engineers, not in the party tube, but in our scientific and professional sphere, used to say to me: “Boy, first choose who will curse you and then who will be your friends and your partners”. Today is a day that proves that the lessons and advice were not wasted…

For days now, things have been leaking about me, as usual from “Comrades”. That I will leave SYRIZA and that I have agreed with PASOK, that I am giving up active political action, obviously that I am to blame for everything, from the defeat in the local elections to the election of Kaselakis and various other usual lies, which come from “comrade” solidarity , which we are now used to. I haven’t responded to leaks in years.

In the last few days, an attempt has been made to target me once again, by the same circle of friends, on social media, with the well-known “comradeship”, the intensity of which was maximized in the days of the election of a new president. I don’t always answer them either.

Today, however, the action of slandering and targeting me was upgraded, with reference to my name in television shows and an attempt to distort the truth, by SYRIZA PS officials, mixing up the sequence of actions and events. That is why I owe it to the members of the SYRIZA PS to publicly give concrete answers:

A. In relation to my resignation from PG:

I resigned from the Political Secretariat of our party, as I had previously announced, both at the PG meeting and publicly, after the strategic defeat of SYRIZA PS and the entire democratic and progressive world and after the resignation of Alexis Tsipras, as they were due in my opinion I want all those who participated in the PG of the party to act. Unfortunately, this decision of the Members’ Movement was not supported by all those who participated in the decision to resign the bodies and immediately elect new ones from the central Committee.

I proposed holding a conference and then the election of the President after the municipal elections, so that our members and officers could focus on the battle of the municipal elections, but also to precede the election of the President, the self-criticism, the proposals, the composition and the political decisions we had to shape. This self-evident proposal was not accepted because a heterogeneous majority wanted to produce a President of their liking, quickly.

I did not accept to participate in an apolitical process of electing a President, arranging personal plans and expediencies, without preceding the party congress.

I did not put party offices and chairs above our party, the progressive world and the responsibility we all have.

Although I believe that conference proceedings should begin as decided in November, it is at least hypocritical today for those who chose not to have the conference, when it should have been, tearing up their robes. Maybe because the President of their liking was not elected.

B. In relation to self-government:

1. When Alexis Tsipras urgently asked me to assume the role of coordinator of the self-government committee of the PG, a responsibility that I did not want because I believe that parliamentary department heads should not have responsibilities as members of the PG, I wish I could say that: “the course and our choices in the Self-Government were an “extremely” simple and easy process, due to our coordinated self-governing presence in the previous years, the structures and our operation, which the Party Secretaries and Heads of Departments had built, from the previous self-governing elections” . Unfortunately it was just the opposite. It is enough that SYRIZA PS did not even have its members, who were elected to the municipal and regional councils, registered.

2. It took more than a year of delays by the Umbrella members to implement the decision of the Conference to establish a self-government network. In particular, in two meetings of the Central Committee, an attempt was made to cancel the decisions of the Congress for the establishment of a self-government network, and in two other meetings of the PG, an attempt was made to cancel and then delay the establishment of the self-government network, so that the decision of the Congress and the KE. It is enough to remember that in the first phase, they did not propose the participation of even one of our members, only to be delayed and ultimately not have the time to work. The completion of the composition of the Self-Government network coincided with the start of the pre-election campaign of the national elections and therefore its operation was effectively cancelled, despite the information of its more than 300 members.

3. Long before my resignation, proposals for the Regions and for the 100 largest Municipalities were delivered to the Secretary, the Deputy Secretary and the PG. My suggestion that the choices of support should be made officially or unofficially in consultation with the then 4 presidential candidates, since we had suffered a double and major defeat in the national elections and any choices mainly in the regions and large municipalities gave a specific political direction , did not take place because the tactic of not assuming any responsibility prevailed.

4. Unfortunately, after my resignation, little of what we suggested was followed. On the contrary, the PG was involved in 2 meetings to change the decision of the KE, the support of the athlete Nikos Pappas to the Municipality of Athens, giving the message of the selection of party nominations. The same tactic was followed in most nominations for Regional Governors, with the Region of Crete as an illustrative example. Whenever the Comrades want, we can say either in the organs or in public what my proposals were, which were not followed, what the final choices were and why they were changed. However, their choices and party references are obvious and whether they served the victory of the self-governing forms we supported or the mechanisms of those who denounce me. I must also inform you that the leadership of PASOK-KINAL, which also followed a tactic of party nominations, is largely responsible for not forming common progressive ballots in the Regions and large Municipalities.

C. In relation to SYRIZA PS and the democratic progressive world:

1. I will not apologize for my views on a unified representation of the democratic and progressive world, which I have expressed both in the party organs and in public, because those who want SYRIZA PS, a party of the radical left, with ideological purity do not like it and addressing rather than top-down participation in the rest of the progressive and democratic world.

2. I will not forget and no one will forget that after a decade many Comrades cannot feel SYRIZA PS as their home due to corresponding personal targeting behaviors and unacceptable tactics. They will not forget that they tried to become members and their applications were lost, that there was no register of all members, that many of those who voted for Alexis Tsipras as President, never received a phone call and many more… from the top to the base…

3. I will not forget and no one will forget, how decisions were overturned and not implemented, how the minority imposed its views on the majority, how relationships were altered, how institutions were bypassed.

4. The rise of the extreme right, so that it is the second pole of the political system, in many European countries, is not only the result of the economic, social and political crisis, but also of the inability of the progressive forces to perceive the great social, political, economic and geopolitical changes. It is the result of audacity and pettiness to proceed with the necessary, big and transcendent initiatives, which will convince society and constitute a large social and political majority. A majority that will immediately give hope for a progressive and democratic plan to govern the country.

5. The progressive parties that cannot constitute the political majority of an alternative government, serving the narrow goals of the party offices, leave the country and the people stuck in the conservative faction, either with the ND pandom as today, or with a dipole between the right as in France and Italy.

6. The time of tolerating my personal targeting and our broader targeting is over. The resignation of Alexis Tsipras, who was the cohesive essence of SYRIZA PS, leaves no room for the well-known tactics of Social Media and journalists of factional groups.

7. Everybody knows about the subversion, Comrade Panos, and they don’t forget, as you may have noticed in the last presidential election procedures that I did not participate in. In any case, it is not subversion to fight for a political body that includes the whole range of the progressive world, according to the decision of the Congress. It’s not about defending party positions, even if you don’t believe them, or didn’t vote for them, as I did and as many of us did.

I hope that there is a sense of responsibility and a willingness for honest dialogue, composition and companionship of all of us together with society, as opposed to addressing the democratic world of a closed and ideologically narrow party.”