By Antonis Anzoletou

Stefanos Kasselakis will not be in the “marquee” of Gazi Live on November 24. Candidates for approval for the presidency will be Apostolos Gletsos, Pavlos Polakis, Sokratis Famellos and Nikolas Farandouris. This was announced by the Political Secretariat and was not something unexpected. The semiology, however, is important to cause a new “war” between the two camps. A little over 24 hours before the polls open for the election of the congressmen with the 230,000 registered members, the “87” essentially make it clear that the congress cannot discuss the issue of the former president’s candidacy. The other side insists in high “decibels” that only the highest governing body can exclude candidates.

The conflict will be fierce, and it was seen after the end of yesterday’s meeting of the body. The leaks gave and took, since another meeting had preceded, in which Theodora Tzakri asked a series of questions in relation to the conduct of the conference. It is clear that the side of Stefanos Kasselakis is already setting the stage for a “democratic diversion” in case he is excluded from the electoral process. It speaks of methods, even of exclusions of registrants from the Member Organizations. After all, they give recommendations to the members that “the staff of Stefanos Kasselakis is making efforts to deal with the situation and urges the members to appear at the O.M. with proof of their electronic registration and demand to vote”. The former president of SYRIZA said in his post that “there will be other strategies in their competitive effort for the final exclusion. They are capable of everything. We are capable of one thing: More Democracy.” Rena Dourou, Olympia Teligioridou, Panos Rigas and Nikos Skorinis asked not to connect the political part of the decision with the organizational ones. Pavlos Polakis voted in favor, while Theodora Tzakri voted against the entire proposal.

The “87” are also counting forces and once again prevailed at the meeting of the Political Secretariat. The announcement was particularly harsh, as it stated that “different misleading registries, separate buildings, references to coups and dictatorships are choices offensive to our history and antagonistic to our perspective. They are options to prepare another competitive party to SYRIZA PS and its democratic processes”. Olga Gerovasili, at the meeting of the body, referred to the non-acceptance of the majority democratic decisions of the party by Stefanos Kasselakis. “When it suited him, the decisions were democratic, when they stopped suiting him, they became diversionary,” he said characteristically. He pointed out that “Stefanos Kasselakis is now throwing threats at the party when he says that his followers will not be gentle and kind” at the conference. Katerina Notopoulou in P.G. asked himself: “Stefanos Kaselakis represents the president or the candidate for president with the assistance of members of the P.G. who are mocking us, while he himself is openly moving against SYRIZA, serving the Mitsotakis plan?”. He characterized the logic he introduced as “either with us or against us” as anti-democratic and authoritarian. The new majority claims that in the Kasselakis camp they are aware of the change in the relationships that exists at the base and in this way they are preparing the “heroic exit” from the party.