“We didn’t leave for the chairs, they were offered to us and we refused them,” stressed Mr Alexis Haritsisspeaking to SKAI and the show “Mismatches”, in view of the announcement of the name of the group of 11 MPs who recently left SYRIZA-PS, forming a Parliamentary Group.

As he himself stated, the new parliamentary group aims to “bring back a substantial political content that will be marked in the public debate, that will be left-wing and addressed to all democratic citizens”. He emphasized that criticism is welcome, but not the toxicity and vulgarity that has been broadcast lately and is offensive to the entire space of the left and the political system in general.

Asked if this toxicity and vulgarity he referred to belongs to Mr. Kasselakis and his leadership team, he replied that “anyone who follows the public debate calmly and objectively comes to this conclusion”.

Mr. Haritsis pointed out that the decision to leave was painful and that they respect those who stay behind.

“We didn’t leave – as they tell us – for the chairs, we were just offered chairs and we refused if we were interested in the chairs, we would have been there and we wouldn’t have taken the risk of leaving. What we wanted and had discussed is that there should be a clear political plan, where we are going, what we want to say to the Greek citizens, who we want to represent and see how a group will be formed that can carry out this plan . Unfortunately, neither happened. We saw choices that led to the degeneration of an entire political space and we took this extremely difficult and painful decision”, Mr. Haritsis emphasized.

He explained that Mr. Kasselakis made his choices in relation to the central leadership group that he wanted to have around him and which also sent out his signal of how SYRIZA will proceed from here on.

He added that their goal is twofold. “In order to form an opposition to the Mitsotakis government that is absent from the public political confrontation. There is currently no convincing opposition force that is ideologically and politically opposed to it, and I think we can have such a confrontation with Mitsotakis. The second is to present a complete, convincing radical and at the same time realistic proposal to the Greek people.

He said that they will fight the European elections to consolidate the new party and that they will proceed in an orderly fashion in the next period.

Asked if he feels closer to Mr. Kasselakis’ SYRIZA or Mr. Androulakis’s PASOK, he replied that “We want to define ourselves.”