New departure from SYRIZA was announced earlier, as the youth of Heraklion, Crete and Rethymno are leaving.

“With the decision of the majority of our members, we are withdrawing from SYRIZA-P.S.“, note the members of the youth of Heraklion Crete and Rethymno and attach a lengthy text in which they analyze the reasons for their decision.

Full text

After the double election defeat in May and June, both the country and our area are in an extremely difficult situation.

On the one hand, the large percentage of ND has been interpreted by the government as a blank check which continues unabated its anti-popular work, on the other hand, the developments in our party are anything but optimistic towards the reversal of the existing situation.

After the defeat in 2019, we hoped that we would enter a discussion composed
account of the government term: of our successes and failures, our right and wrongs, so that we can actually rebuild our party, which in the period 2015-19 lost its kinetic and competitive reflexes, but also the substantive engagement and grounding within society.

We were denied!

Instead of the above, we were led to an “enlargement” from above without any political frame of reference and to a general “progressivism” at the expense of traditionally left-wing values, labor rights and the defense of the vulnerable.

At the same time, the search and claim of the middle ground without defining its characteristics, led the party to political decisions that often contradict each other. The passing of the allowance for police officers, at a time when public opinion was shocked by the murders of our Roma fellow citizens by police forces.

The position on the Ebro fence, the silence on the demilitarization of our islands are just some of the examples that highlight the ambiguity on two of the main national issues, those of defense and immigration.

The above are written examples of the blurred direction in which our party was marching for a long time. At the same time, the death of the party apparatus with the organizations essentially dissolved, the bodies not meeting and not producing policy, all the weight of the discussion was transferred to informal bodies such as the “morning coffee”, the social networks, etc.

After the double electoral defeat in the last election we thought that, at least this time, we would discuss in depth what led us to this defeat. We were wrong again.

There was a unique opportunity to reconstitute the party on a substantial basis of principles and political plan, away from the dominant leader-centered model – inconsistent with the democratic values ​​of the Progressive Left – as well as to re-establish processes and institutions.

Unfortunately, we witnessed a personal-centered, intra-party campaign that had nothing to offer the struggling people, their concerns and real problems. The obsessive focus on a supposedly power-centered plan that would lead us to governmentality, opened the back door to phenomena of communication rather than substance.

With the election of Mr. Kasselakis, the epilogue came to the shift of the party from
Radical Left in the moderate “social liberal” center.

Now, and through the mouth of the president, SYRIZA is “another ally for BSE”, a party that does not recognize responsibility for Israel’s ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians. The culmination of the change in the party’s character was the president’s introductory speech to the last central committee.

An anti-leftist and anti-comrade delirium which targeted not only historical and founding members of the field, but also our own history. When a party is in crisis, it is first and foremost the president’s responsibility to maintain unity, based on the constitution and principles of diversity.

Mr. Kasselakis and his supporters chose to press the doom button. Thus the climate of fanaticism, toxicity and anti-comradeship within the party was strengthened.

Mr. Kasselakis, while claiming to be fighting for unity, benefits from this anti-social behavior of his “followers”, who spread inaccuracies and false news without doing anything to refute them.

On the contrary, in the case of the 37 billion, instead of supporting the legacy of his party’s government, the only government in the history of the country, where with political cost and responsibility towards the commitments to the bloody people, he left surplus funds, he condemns it by not defining it; adopting it anti-SYRIZA propaganda.

We see that the Mitsotakis narrative was adopted, by the president himself, by the new leadership, for the anti-SYRIZA front.

TINA (there is no alternative) is adopted, where we cannot hope/desire any change in the neoliberal system, only a fairer management of it (without scandals).

But neoliberalism cannot be imposed without a regime of permanent exception, crises and scandals. The monitoring e.g. it is not a diversion from the neoliberal system. It’s the system. So any attempt to correct it, without its deep revision, will not be possible.

For the above reasons, we do not consider that the current SYRIZA-PS can be a space through which we can fight for our beliefs.

We keep as a legacy the struggles we fought, the victories and defeats, the joys and sorrows we experienced, but above all the camaraderie we tried to preserve even in this difficult decision we are making. We will continue to fight for the cause of the Radical Left from another dimension, because another world is possible.

Earlier, 50 members of the Organization of University Members SYRIZA-P.S. announced their withdrawal from SYRIZA in a collective text. Thessaloniki, throwing “fire” at Stefanos Kasselakis.