“The president’s initiative canceled the members’ conference and with it the last chance for our reorganization ahead of the European elections,” said, according to information, the Yannis Ragousis during his presentation at the meeting of the Political Secretariat of the SYRIZA PS, which is in progress.

In particular, Mr. Ragousis argued, according to the same information, that “there is an elephant in the room and it is not, neither the questionnaire, nor the conference, it is the continuous retreat of the social and polling influence of the party”. He stated that the letter to the members of the PG “probably started a premature blame game ahead of the European elections”, to comment that “for the bad opinion poll image, the Political Secretariat is not responsible”, but that “a series of wrong initiatives that received by the President and his immediate associates, especially in the last two months.”

In this context he commented: “H Political Secretariat what responsibility did he have for the negative publicity we caused, for example: with statements about a ‘sick opposition officer’. With the President’s loan to the party. With the ministerial proposal of St. Kasselakis. With MPs diverging from the party line on marriage equality, which ultimately turned out to be completely unfair for 34 of our MPs who shouldered the political cost and stayed true to our principles.”

He stated, among other things, that he agrees with the questionnaire and with the possibility for members to express themselves and say their opinion on a series of issues that must be raised “but in the correct scientific way”. He said that he disagrees with the president of the party “who announced today that the results of what the members answer will not be disclosed”, as “this will be a grave insult to the members of the party who will fill in the questionnaire”.

“However, the convention is the pinnacle moment of party members. The conference is members’ time. And unfortunately the questionnaire with the specific identity questions it asks, as a matter of fact, ended the position conference before it even started. In other words, the conference was already postponed,” said Mr. Ragousis.

He emphasized that “in this sense the initiative to raise these issues after the end of the pre-conference dialogue and not at the beginning of it, nullifies the prime moment of the members. Unless one thinks that it makes sense to discuss the secondary issues in a party you don’t know the name of, which goes to coke.” “Well,” he said, “the President’s initiative canceled the members’ conference and with it the last chance to regroup ahead of the European elections.”