By ANTONIS ANZOLETOU

The question that entered the Tae Kwon Do hall from those who attended a Tae Kwon Do conference for the first time SYRIZA it referred to the element that differentiated this particular procedure from the previous ones. And the answer is twofold: policy making and people. 2013, 2016 and 2022 were three very difficult congresses with different disputes in which the world of the Left disagreed, clashed and finally through disagreements a composition was achieved even with asterisks. The delegates, in the majority of them, knew each other mainly through actions and cinematic initiatives. A comma derived from KKE interior of the renewing Left found itself in the three previous congresses negotiating the next day, twice as official opposition and once as government. In the process that ended on Sunday at noon, the debate between him Stefanos Kasselakis and Olga Gerovasilis dominated overshadowing any other issue. New members found themselves in a similar process for the first time, not that this is a disadvantage. The bad thing is that the conference was marked by reactions and behaviors that far exceeded political boundaries. Alexis Tsipras, with his intervention, changed the agenda and everything revolved around appealing to the grassroots to elect a leader.

11 years ago the founding conference of SYRIZA took place. The conversation that took place was long and painful with him Alexis Tsipras to manage to leave behind the constituents preparing the party for the coming power. In July 2013 The Manolis Glezos, the historical figure of the Left, with the thunderbolts he had unleashed indirectly but clearly accused the leadership group of going to turn the party into a “leadership type” with members – applause. SYRIZA became a unified party and nothing was the same anymore. Only the tendencies remained legally enshrined. His Left Platform Panagiotis Lafazani expressed in her text her fears about the possibility of SYRIZA turning into a social democratic party that will be alienated from the social strata that support it. A very intense process, but a policy that even had proposals for exiting the eurozone and canceling the debt evolved through intense discussions.

The second congress of the party in 2016 it was very different. The president of the party, Alexis Tsipras, running unopposed in the internal party elections, was re-elected president with 2,548 votes and a percentage of 93.54%. The main stake was how the party and the government could at that time emerge victorious in commissariat conditions. In Political Decision it was stated that “in this unfavorable environment we were forced to accept the agreement signed last summer, in order to prevent the disaster with which the lenders threatened our country through bankruptcy and exit from the Eurozone, primarily victimizing the world of work”. Eight years ago, the conflict between the “presidential” and the “53+” held well with the specific tendency of SYRIZA to very often pull Alexis Tsipras from the “left sleeve”. Even the number of members of the Central Committee was the subject of controversy, while the issue of the quota and the participation of the deputies required the resounding intervention of Alexis Tsipras, which had been discussed a lot.

The 2022 conference it was also confrontational. An inventory of forces within the party was first carried out. The “presidential” prevailed over the “Umbrella” with a percentage of 70%-30%. The conflict was largely focused on the will of Alexis Tsipras and the majority to elect the president from the grassroots. Euclides Tsakalotos intervened to defend the proposal submitted by “Ombrela”, through Dimitris Vitsa, for the election of president and K.E. from the conference, as defined by the statute until then. Nikos Filis had attacked the presidential group, saying that SYRIZA is copying the presidential election model of systemic parties that have nothing to do with the Left. Yannis Dragasakis had referred to the inability of SYRIZA’s organizational development, talking about the low political commitment regarding the promotion of the plan to create a modern mass leftist party with active members. And this turned out to be one of SYRIZA’s big “minuses” in the run-up to the summer 2023 elections. The party’s slump in numbers has brought tectonic changes with the official opposition still trying to recover from the resignation of Alexis Tsipras from the presidency last June.