On Thursday morning, Alexis Haritsis and Nasos Iliopoulos have a meeting with the president of the Parliament, Kostas Tasoula, in the Parliament.

The two executives are going to hand over the letters of independence, not only for themselves, but also for the team they belong to.

The following are independent: Anagnostopoulou Co, Ahtsioglou Efi, Zeibek Hussain, Iliopoulos Nassos, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, Tzoufi Meropi, Ferhat Ozgiur, Photios Theanos, Haritsis Alexis.

The exit text

For a politics of responsibility and hope. We continue.

Greece is at a critical point. The elections of May and June 2023 showed a strong New Democracy government, which feels all-powerful to continue its anti-social policies and impose a right-wing agenda on critical issues that seal the country’s future. The political axis has shifted to the Right, the extreme Right and reactionary perceptions are gaining ground, the brutality of everyday life is turning into a new normality. Against this development, the forces of the progressive opposition appear at a distance from the anxieties and problems of the citizens. The issue is deeply political. Absent is a modern political and social plan that convinces, not in rhetoric, but in practice, that we can defeat the dominance of the Right. Yet. The possibilities are there.

Millions of citizens are looking for a strong, programmatic and visionary opposition that will be able to express a new plan for the progressive regeneration of the country. We can do it. But this requires a modern leftist politics of responsibility and hope. Which will convince and inspire.

SYRIZA-PS is experiencing a dissolution crisis. The new President of the party and the leadership group refuse to recognize and discuss the political core of the problem. Instead, they choose the interpretive scheme of the “enemy within” and the “Fifth Phalanx.” When they do not choose attacks and insults, they resort to a simplistic, empty speech with general slogans. The results are visible. At this moment, SYRIZA-PS is sinking into disrepute and discredit. It is a painful and dissolving process that affects not only the historic party of the Left, but the progressive forces and the Republic of the country as a whole.

Stefanos Kasselakis was democratically elected. But it is acting undemocratically. It dissolves SYRIZA-PS and turns it into an amorphous party, while at the same time its political brand emits a jumble of contradictory opinions without any programmatic depth. An indication of this pathogenicity are the positions expressed by the President on critical issues, where on one day he easily declares the party’s subordination to the big economic interests and on the other he lashes out rhetorically, but not at all convincingly, against them. His unreliability, the undermining of the government work of the SYRIZA government (2015-2019), the authoritarian behavior we saw at the last meeting of the Central Committee leave no room for doubt. It is, unfortunately, a course of no return.

All of us who sign this text recognize the need and take responsibility for a decisive break in the course of degeneration and discrediting of the Left and progressive forces in our country. We recognize our own responsibilities in the tolerance, in the name of political unity, of problematic phenomena that led to the crisis of the party, the tolerance of divisive attitudes that fueled the anti-SYRIZA front and distanced from us progressive citizens of good will. At the same time, we remain proud of what we achieved in the 2015-2019 period under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, when SYRIZA undertook the task of saving the social cohesion of a bankrupt country. We keep from this precious and difficult battle the big cuts in social and labor policy, the success of the exit from the Memoranda, the national self-confidence that led to the Prespa Agreement. And above all, we keep the awareness that the modern Left is the one that fights and plans, that speaks concretely and takes responsibility for the practice of politics, that changes people’s lives today. Our Left is not limited to the position of consistent opposition. It is the Left that claims the government. He says what he believes and believes what he says.

We, members of the Central Committee, are today withdrawing from SYRIZA-PS. The step we are taking starts from a hard admission. The situation that has consolidated in SYRIZA-PS does not allow us to defend, implement and renew the program and the political plan based on which we claimed the support and vote of the citizens in the recent electoral contests. The ideological shift from principles and values of the modern Left, the inadequacy and contradictory positions of the new leadership group, lack all credibility. They nullify any attempt to rally wider progressive forces from across the spectrum of the Left, the Center-Left and Ecology and a victorious march against the politics of the ND.
But today we are taking a step that looks to the future. Greece needs a politically strong and programmatically visionary progressive opposition, which will not only challenge the hegemony of the New Democracy, but will create the conditions for its overthrow. This requires the formation of a modern political content on the great questions of our time: the climate crisis that defines a new historical period as a whole, the empowerment of work in the new challenges, the productive model of the country, social inequalities, modern gender and feminist claims, the content and the institutions of the Republic. Contemporary demands that speak to the strategic goal of socialism with democracy and freedom. The political time is dense and requires bold steps. The old recipes have shown their limits.

Our ambition is to contribute to the creation of a left-wing and progressive space that will shape the answers and the political plan that will respond to the searches and expectations of the citizens. Not alone and alone. Not with the logic of artificially welding old or new fragments. But through political and organizational work from below, from the reconstitution of progressive forces, from the formation of a modern political and social current with leftist and progressive citizens, with modern social movements, with the forces of political ecology, with the people who fight against the exclusions, the discriminations, the difficulties and the fascism of everyday life.
We can win. 2024 is marked by the milestone of 50 years of the Third Hellenic Republic. The time has come for a reboot of the Republic. A new course for the country that will be based on the great achievements of the Postcolonial period, but at the same time will promote decisive intersections and progressive policies that give substance to the modern content of the Republic: a society of equality, freedom and justice. A society of safety, inclusion and a better life.

We will devote all our energies to this goal.”