The former minister Panos Skourletis left SYRIZA with heavy spikes.

In his statement he states the following:

“The developments in SYRIZA-PS have taken a path of no return. The latest heavy electoral defeats are the culmination of a series of wrong choices made after 2019. The forces that currently dominate SYRIZA-PS are implementing a plan of division and rupture that the neo-coup and out of touch with the Left and St. politics undertook to complete. Kasselakis.

The narrative that was adopted after 2019 discredited the government period since it could not highlight its successes while at the same time it was not understood that the great contradictions between the programmatic positions of SYRIZA and the implemented government policies, as a result of coercion, were insurmountable. The project of enlargement instead of taking on social grounding characteristics, became an affair of top movements produced introversion, division and toxicity.

It stood in the way of SYRIZA-PS taking the necessary steps that would put it back on track to claim the government. What were those?

In-depth assessment and self-criticism, programmatic hierarchies, formulation of a coherent plan. In two words, the formation of an attractive identity. On the contrary, SYRIZA became synonymous with a contradictory and blurred opposition presence.

SYRIZA-PS was not able to take advantage of the major events and crises of the entire previous period that could in fact highlight the hegemony of the views of the Left over the neoliberal impasses. I am specifically referring to the health crisis which objectively highlighted the value of the public health system, the energy crisis which highlighted the value of public common goods, the climate crisis which today is more widely understood through catastrophic fires and extreme flooding phenomena. He could not express the pulse of society when it was faced with the tragic accident of Tembo. He was unable to articulate a coherent critique of the impasses of the domestic production model that reproduces age-old pathogens. He was content with a superficial review that had everything and nothing.

After 2019, choices were made that ultimately led to the defeat of 2023 and brought us to the point where ND was playing without an opponent and made SYRIZA-PS in the minds of the citizens, synonymous with unreliability. SYRIZA seemed not to understand the messages of society and did not realize what was coming or pretended not to see it.

To the question, well, have you discovered all this now? I answer of course not. I have repeatedly raised them within the party organs along with other executives without ever getting a response and a meaningful discussion taking place. After all, the anemic collective functioning and the self-centered nature of SYRIZA in recent years have been a negative reality. As far as I am concerned, I find that in the end maybe it was a mistake that I did not resign from the position of party secretary after 2019. I didn’t do it out of fear that it would damage the image of the party. The culmination of the absolute liquidation of SYRIZA-PS was the congress in 2022 as well as the passing of the party’s last statute which paved the way for the election of St. Kasselakis.

Today, once again, instead of the necessary discussion and recourse directly to a conference, an unorthodox toxic war targeting the different opinions is chosen.

Now the plan is absolutely clear with proposals for a joint descent with PASOK in the European elections but also for the “transformation” of SYRIZA, through its diffusion into a concept of a democratic faction. The statements about our obligation to “apologize for the period 2011-2015”, formulated by the current leadership group, are not indicative.

It is clear that this is a de-leftization project that will lead to the end of the presence in Greece of the Renewal and Radical Left after more than half a century of presence. Will those who choose it succeed? It’s not easy. A history of struggle and catalytic political presence that inoculated Greek society with innovative ideas cannot be lost so easily. The Renewal and Radical Left cannot mutate into an unnerved small-medium consensual-administrative and indifferent political force on the part of the Left. But the necessity for our trial on the Left to be present as a way out force against the multiple crises of the modern era will find a way of expression. In this case, many and many old and especially young people will gather.

It is audacious and disrespectful to mention that “for five years you undermined the party”. If possible the people who founded SYRIZA who were instrumental in reversing the correlations and leading it to government in 2015 should be accused of undermining Unfortunately SYRIZA is today dominated by anti-SYRIZA, populist and centre-right views.

The path he has chosen is dead-end, destructive and leads outside the framework of the ideas, values ​​and positions of the regenerative and radical left and I am not prepared to follow it. I choose to join the dozens of executives and members of SYRIZA who leave every day defending their political dignity and fighting for a better world”.