#alexis charitsis

[head-post]

New Left leader Alexis Charitsis calls for “progressive” front to defeat conservatives

Greek Pasok and Syriza should put an end to their “hegemony” approach and, together with other progressive forces, agree on an alternative governance plan, stated New Left leader Alexis Charitsis, according to Euractiv.

“Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government must go. Enough. But of course, this cannot be done simply by adding up the percentages of the opposition parties.”

The political debate ahead of June’s EU elections is heating up in Greece as the latest opinion polls show the ruling New Democracy party losing ground but still leading in the vote.

The latest polls show New Democracy gaining 31.3% (from 36.2%). It is followed by Syriza (15.9% from 11.4%), with socialist Pasok in third place with 13.4% (from 12.5%).

The New Left, which were recently formed after separating from Syriza, gain 3.8%. However, analysts suggest that they will play the role of kingmaker if a progressive coalition government is formed.

He stated the need for “a solid programmatic base from the opposition and an alternative left, progressive governance plan to the Mitsotakis plan.”

Read more HERE

[mariacallous]

Eleven Greek lawmakers announced on Monday the formation of a new left-wing political party, Nea Aristera (New Left), after leaving SYRIZA amid discontent among leftist members about the election of Stefanos Kasselakis as the party’s leader last month.

The head of New Left’s parliamentary group, Alexis Charitsis, said that it is “a new project of collective participation and the return of politics to the lives of left-wing and progressive citizens”.

The 11 MPs who set up the new party include Effie Achtsioglou, who ran as a candidate for the SYRIZA party’s presidency but lost to Kasselakis.

They announced they were leaving SYRIZA on November 23. On the same day, 57 members of SYRIZA’s central committee signed a statement condemning Kasselakis, accusing him of betraying the party’s leftist principles.

The statement accused him of turning SYRIZA into “an amorphous party” that “emits a jumble of contradictory views without any programmatic depth”.

Kasselakis, 35, was elected to the leadership of SYRIZA in internal party elections in the autumn despite not having any political pedigree.

Speaking on Monday to TV channel ALPHA about the formation of the new party, Kasselakis said: “I have a clear conscience; I tried to be unifying from the first day.”

After the resignation of the 11 MPs, Alexis Tsipras, SYRIZA’s former leader who resigned after the party’s defeat in parliamentary elections this summer, declared his support for Kasselakis.

Tsipras warned on Monday after the new party was announced that splits on the left benefit the right.

“The splintering and multiplying of progressive forces paves the way for the consolidation of conservative forces in the government, but also for the consolidation of the hegemony of the ideas of the far right in European societies,” Tsipras wrote on Facebook.

“The battles before us are not only electoral but political and ideological, and they will be increasingly difficult as long as we do not understand that the enemy is not within our four walls,” he added.

The other ten former SYRIZA MPs who joined the new party are Huseyin Zeybek, Nasos Iliopoulos, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, Meropi Tzoufi, Ferhat Özgür, Theano Fotiou, Alexis Charitsis, Peti Perka, Euklid Tsakalotos and Theano Fotiou.

[nimblechameleon]

Great start to #resilientthessaloniki @100rescities #resiliencestrategy release. Congratulations #Thessaloniki ! - - - We heard from Corina Cretu, European Commissioner for Regional Policy + Alexis Charitsis, Minister of Economy and Development of Greece + Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris + myself + Lina Liakou, Thessaloniki Chief Resilience Officer + Konstantina Karydi, Assoc Director, 100RC. We are now moving on to a two part panel focused on resilience within the metropolitan development. #resilience #resilientcities #precovery #greece🇬🇷 #100rclife #TBirdlife (at Δημος Θεσσαλονικης)

[head-post]

Greece: 11 MPs who left SYRIZA announced of a new parliamentary group

Former members of the main opposition party SYRIZA have announced the formation of a new parliamentary group.

An event was held on Monday where eleven lawmakers announced the formation of the group.

The New Left group’s leader, former Interior Minister Alexis Charitsis, said:

We want a new, modern, European Left, a reliable, militant, visionary Left, a broad and open-minded Left that speaks with honesty and clarity.

He said Greek politics was in a serious crisis, manifested in the divisive course of their former party SYRIZA. Alexis Charitsis added:

There is a need to put forward a wholesome, ambitious plan that will provide answers to the big issues of our time: climate crisis, social inequalities, and the overall quality of democracy in the 21st century. New Left will fight the big battle of the June 2024 European elections with progressive ideas that will translate into actions.

Read more HERE

[mariacallous]

The team of Effie Achtsioglou, candidate for the left-wing SYRIZA party’s presidency, announced its departure from the party on Thursday, as 57 members of the central committee signed a text condemning the new party leader, Stefanos Kasselakis.

At the same time, nine SYRIZA MPs on Thursday handed letters to president of the parliament proclaiming their political independence. MPs Sia Anagnostopoulou, Effie Achtsioglou, Huseyin Zeybek, Nasos Iliopoulos, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, Meropi Tzoufi, Ferhat Özgür, Theano Fotiou and Alexis Charitsis will now sit as independents.

After the latest developments, SYRIZA is left with 36 MPs out of a former tally of 47.

The text signed by the 57 states that the opposition party is experiencing a severe crisis and is sinking into disrepute. They accuse the new president of ignoring the problem.

“SYRIZA is experiencing a dissolution crisis. The new president of the party and the leadership group refuse to recognize and discuss the political core of the problem. Instead, they choose the hermeneutic scheme of the ‘enemy within’ and the ‘Fifth Column’…. At this moment, SYRIZA is sinking into disrepute and discredit. It is a painful and dissolving process that affects not only the historic party of the Left, but the progressive forces and the republic as a whole,” the text states.

Kasselakis was democratically elected, the text notes, but is betraying the party’s leftist principles. His action “dissolves SYRIZA and turns it into an amorphous party, while at the same time its political brand emits a jumble of contradictory views without any programmatic depth”.

The text praises the party’s former leader, Alexis Tsipras,. who unexpectedly quit after the poor results of the parliamentary elections in June.

“We remain proud of what we achieved in the 2015-2019 period under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, when SYRIZA undertook the task of rescuing the social cohesion of a bankrupt country. We keep from this precious and difficult battle .. the success of the exit from the Memoranda and the national self-confidence that led to the Prespa Agreement,” the text said, referencing the historic deal Tsipras reached with Greece’s northern neighbour, North Macedonia, ending a years-long dispute over the latter’s name.

The Memorandum of Understanding was a series of punishing conditions imposed on Greece in 2010 by the EU in return for an economic bailout.

The former president of SYRIZA has so far not taken a position on recent developments.

“We members of the Central Committee are today withdrawing from SYRIZA. The step we take starts from a hard admission. The situation that has been consolidated in SYRIZA does not allow us to defend, implement and renew the program and political plan based on which we claimed the support and vote of the citizens in the recent electoral contests. The ideological shift from the principles and values of the modern Left, the inadequacy and the contradictory positions of the new leadership group, deprive it of all credibility,” the text concludes.

In autumn internal party elections, over 55 per cent of some 130,000 party members voted in 35-year-old US-educated investment banker and openly gay Stefanos Kasselakis as the new leader. He defeated four rivals, former labour minister and apparent frontrunner Effie Achtsioglou, Nikos Pappas, Euclid Tsakalotos and Stefanos Tzoumakas.

Kasselakis had no political pedigree but did have some powerful backers, including Nikos Pappas, a close ally of Tsipras who had been convicted months earlier of abuse of office in his handling of a TV license tender when SYRIZA was in power.

In May, Kasselakis was handpicked by Tsipras for a privileged position on the party’s MP candidate list, although SYRIZA’s disastrous performance in the elections meant he failed to win a seat in parliament. Running to replace him as leader, Kasselakis said he was proud that “Alexis Tsipras brought me to the party”.

The number of resignations from SYRIZA is meanwhile increasing.

On November 12, Euclid Tsakalotos and MP Theopisti Perka announced their resignations from SYRIZA and independence. On Wednesday, a number of members of the party’s Human Rights Sector left, as did the majority of its secretariat. On November 19, the youth wing of SYRIZA in Thessaloniki left. Three SYRIZA MEPs have also left, Dimitris Papadimouli, Stelios Kouloglou, and Petros Kokkalis.

At a meeting of the party’s Central Committee on November 11, Kasselakis insisted the dissolution of SYRIZA had gone on for years. “For the last several years, SYRIZA was a divided party that did not want to admit it … The departure of the executives … is not the disruption of SYRIZA but the beginning of unity,” he said.