Greece’s main opposition Syriza party has been rocked by dissent a month after a former Goldman Sachs trader was unexpectedly elected leader, prompting fears of a damaging split.
Stefanos Kasselakis, 35, has been accused by Syriza veterans of ignoring party procedures and seeking to drag the leftist movement — which fought a bitter battle against austerity a decade ago — towards the centre-right.
“I am chairman of a progressive movement with a mandate (to create) a modern Left party,” Kasselakis said Sunday.
“The river does not turn back… take it or leave it,” he told Ant1 TV.
The new leader sparked criticism after postponing by three months a long-awaited congress that was supposed to recalibrate party policies.
This was moved from November to February.
He caused further outrage earlier this month after telling Greek industrialists that on his watch, Syriza would no longer “demonise” private capital.
Capital “is a tool for prosperity,” he said.
On Saturday, leftist daily Efsyn noted that a decade earlier, Kasselakis had defended public sector layoffs and wage cuts during the Greek debt crisis.
“The 15,000 public sector layoffs earmarked for 2012 seem far too few to me. In my opinion, they should have already fired many more people, and invested the money in tax cuts,” he wrote in a Greek diaspora daily.
On Saturday, another senior Syriza cadre, former health minister Andreas Xanthos accused Kasselakis of seeking to “mutate” Syriza.
“He is out of touch with reality,” Xanthos said.
Kasselakis on Sunday told Cosmos radio he should not be judged over opinion pieces he wrote a decade ago.
Kasselakis won the Syriza leadership last month after a whirlwind campaign mostly waged on social media.
Previous leader Alexis Tsipras had earlier resigned after successive defeats to the conservative New Democracy party of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who won national elections in June by a landslide.
Kasselakis defeated four other candidates — three of them prominent Syriza former ministers — by promising to promote transparency, boost labour and social rights, speed up justice and eliminate perks for bankers and politicians.
Emigrating to the United States at the age of 14, he is also the first elected official in Greece to openly declare he is gay.
Source: AFP
