The “87” members of the Central Committee of SYRIZA call on the president of the party, Stefanos Kasselakis, to “take responsibility and announce presidential elections”, ahead of today’s crucial meeting of the body at 12 pm.

The text of “87” is signed by 100 members of the party and has already been sent to Secretary K.E. of SYRIZA Rania Svigou

Read the text of “87” in detail:

“The meeting of the Central Committee takes place at an extremely critical moment for SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance, which makes its character of historical importance and the responsibilities of all equally weighty. Our party is facing an unprecedented crisis. If we do not immediately and decisively respond to its causes, it will continue to sink into introversion and disappoint left-wing and progressive citizens.

It is our historic duty to stop this downward trend. We owe it to the Greek people and to the left and progressive world of the country, the world from the renewing and radical left, the socialist space, ecology, the progressive center. We owe it to our history and the struggles we fought to make SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance from a small party, local government and official opposition. Let’s not let what we’ve built all these years of hard work be torn down in a few months.

In the last months after the European elections, under the main responsibility of the party’s President, Stefanos Kasselakis, SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance produces daily negative instead of positive events, parapolitics instead of politics, introversion instead of extroversion. This situation, as long as it continues, irreparably damages the image of the party, injures its unity and hurts its members, friends and supporters.

The list is long in such a short time. From the President’s non-existent references to black funds, which he retracted after the outcry, to the unacceptable attacks on Alexis Tsipras with late-night posts. From the constant search for internal enemies to the public targeting of members of the Political Secretariat and the Central Committee by the President himself. From the childish manipulations in the Parliamentary Group to the division of the Parliamentary Group with the sudden and unjustified replacement of its Bureau for the sake of intra-party associations.

To these is added the logic of liquidations. More recent example, his impeachment Christos Spirtzis to the Ethics Committee with the question of deletion, because he expressed his political opinion on the result of the European elections and the cooperation of the progressive forces. This is a typical example of an anti-democratic logic, alien to this day not only to SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance but to the Left and the progressive space as a whole.

At the same time, the handling of the critical issue of the party’s media, the newspaper “I Avgi” and the newspaper “Sto Kokkino”, with the systematic concealment of the real financial data and above all with the unacceptable behavior towards their employees, gave the picture of the absence of empathy and does not honor our party as a party of the Left that has always stood up for labor rights.

All of the above is happening in a political environment that was formed after the European elections and which makes the cooperation of progressive forces imperative. Despite the rapid drop in New Democracy’s percentages in the European elections, SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance retreated even more and instead of regaining its governmental perspective, it moved further away from it.

It is necessary for the New Democracy to have an alternative governance proposal from the progressive space, because otherwise the danger of the Far Right is visible, as is happening in more and more countries in Europe. The current imbalance in the political system needs to be addressed. The social opposition, which these days is demonstrating en masse at the Thessaloniki International Fair, should find a way out and be translated into a progressive majority.

The Mitsotakis government has left unchecked profiteering for the benefit of the few and powerful and at the expense of the great social majority and is promoting a productive model similar to the one that led the country to bankruptcy. At the same time, it has dismantled the National Health System, it has destroyed democratic institutions, it promotes the commercialization of public and inclusive Education and the shrinking of its structures, it cannot deal with the housing crisis and the demographic problem, it cannot guarantee the safety of citizens nor the resilience of the country against the consequences of the climate crisis.

Against the policies of the New Democracy, our party has elaborated programmatic positions and proposals, to deal with the accuracy and the strengthening of incomes, the support of Public Health and Education, the productive reconstruction, the reduction of housing costs, the upgrading of civil protection. However, instead of our policy being at the center of our public presence on all the major issues that concern the country and society, under the responsibility of the President we occupy the public sphere often with parapolitics.

Instead of the President taking initiatives and making SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance the protagonist and driving force with the aim of a great progressive electoral cooperation, as the decision of the previous Central Committee also says, he now speaks disparagingly about the cooperations as alleged plans of entanglement.

At a time when broader compositions and transcendences are required, as President he fails to achieve the necessary compositions within our party fueling the internal division and leads SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance to a logic of entrenchment within the – increasingly narrow – boundaries of a party that is constantly shrinking , far from the needs of the time and the expectations of the country’s progressive world.

His pursuit of a small and completely controlled party is also betrayed by the proposed changes to the statute, such as the replacement of Member Organizations by clubs, the abolition of the Prefectural Committees and the Political Secretariat, the weakening of the Central Committee, the superpowers of the President, etc. .

Proposals that lead to the liquidation of the party, to the breakdown of party cohesion and comradely bonds, to the weakening of its daily action and presence in society and finally to the transformation of SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance from a democratic party of the members to an absolutely centralized party.

As for the President’s constant invocation of members and their role, we saw how hypocritical she is when she rejected the proposal for an internal referendum on partnerships but we have also seen it in recent days when she stubbornly refuses to appeal to the grassroots and tries to hide behind marginals correlations in the Central Committee.

We are not prepared to legitimize a mutated party, which has no respect for democracy, our principles and values ​​and the different point of view. This should be the contention of all comrades and comrades in this critical process, which in fact endangers our unity.

At the same time, the farce in which the President’s proposed change of the party’s name is evolving adds another tesserae to the extremely negative image of the party and the absence of any seriousness even in such important issues concerning the identity of the official opposition party, but also the history of thousands of people and fighters.

In any case, Stefanos Kasselakis was elected a year ago President of SYRIZA – Progressive to lead it to recovery, not to shrink it, not to dissolve it and obviously not to found a personal party on it.

It is obvious that in the face of this situation no one can pretend that nothing is happening and hide the problems under the carpet. This is the sure path to further shrinking, attrition and disenchantment of even more leftist and progressive citizens. This situation cannot continue any longer and can only be addressed with clean solutions.

Will SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance continue with introversion, division, creation of internal enemies and parapolitics, as is happening today or will it change course, with extroversion, unity, compositions and policy production?

Will SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance play a leading role in the collaboration of progressive forces or will it follow a path of entrenchment and shrinking into a small protest party led by its current leadership?

Will SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance become a centralized and completely controlled party by its President and a group of people around him, or will it remain a democratic party of the members?

The only one who can give the answer is the thousands of members and friends, who will be called upon to decide on the future of our party in the new constitution that has been formed.

The President of the party, Stefanos Kasselakis, must finally take responsibility and call for Presidential elections. There are no dead ends in democracy.”