London, Thanasis Gavos

He insisted on the correctness of the exercise with the questionnaire to the members of SYRIZA o Stefanos Kasselakis speaking on Monday night at the London School of Economics.

To a question from the interlocutor of Professor Kevin Featherstone about who he asked in the party before making this move, Mr. Kasselakis replied: “Let me remind everyone that I am the president of the party and that I was elected by 150,000 people, with the most accurate and recent stamp of approval from the party base. I was elected with the clear message that I would give voice to all members of the party. Make it a party for the members. That was my message from the beginning.”

He added that the issue is whether the party structures represent the members and that he asked for their opinion on this. He also said that there have already been thousands of responses with very useful content. “How can a party that is afraid to listen to its members expect to govern in the future? (…) If the structures of SYRIZA had worked properly, I would not have to be president today. There should have been a process. The fact that an outsider bypassed everything… there should be a solid foundation.”

The president of SYRIZA said that he does not intend to make public the results of the questionnaire, except to share them with the Political Secretariat.

He noted that the party conference is about policies, while the poll is a completely different process that involves a long-term discussion on issues that are not going to be decided at the upcoming conference.

He said his proposals would be based on what was said at the conference and in the questionnaire and face-to-face contact with members.

Mr. Kasselakis also commented on the statement of the Political Secretariat saying that he is glad to hear that there are no chimeras and agrees that SYRIZA is not a “presidential” party.

“I completely agree. It is a grassroots party and that is what I plan to continue to do. I plan to give party members a voice and access to moving up in the party structure,” he added.

Mr. Kasselakis also identified SYRIZA as a progressive party in the center-left political spectrum.

He also questioned the center-left character of PASOK on the occasion of the abstention of its MPs on the bill for same-sex couples and rejected the prospect of cooperation between the two parties. “We don’t need a coalition with any party”, he said and added that “we want to govern the country with clean structures, with people with abilities” who have not gone through party pipes.

He revealed that Alexis Tsipras told him a month before the June elections that SYRIZA needed “renewal yesterday”, either with new leadership or a massive radical change. He told Alexis Tsipras to go for the renewal.

He also said his predecessor neither encouraged nor discouraged him from running for the leadership.

He added that it was important for him to win the leadership himself. “I won with my merit”, he said, commenting that none of the four candidates “said anything substantial”, while he himself presented a platform of ideas with general directions but also with specific proposals.

When asked if a defeat in the European elections with 20 points would be a reason to resign, he answered simply “no”.

He also said that “we will defeat Mitsotakis” because SYRIZA offers an alternative. “We are on the right side of history,” he observed.

When asked if he is worried about Tsipras’ speech at the conference, he replied in the negative. He then answered “absolutely” to the question of whether he expects his predecessor to support Kasselaki’s political strategy with his speech.

He also said he would decide in due course what would happen to the MPs who abstained from the vote on same-sex couples, saying one was absent due to work commitments.

He also commented that if the SYRIZA government is elected, the oligarchs in Greece should be worried.

He described himself as a “neo-socialist” who understands modern reality and wants open but not deregulated markets, commented that his whole life is “anti-systemic” and identified Andreas Papandreou in 1981 as a model politician to whom he looks for the changes he brought , such as the welfare state.

He got the biggest round of applause in the room when he said he believed there should be an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, without the return of the hostages being a condition. He said that he considers the actions taken by Hamas to be acts of terrorism.