SYRIZA: Arrhythmias on the way to the spring conference

Her Nikis Zorba

There is no case to postpone the SYRIZA Congress again. It will take place on April 14-17 and that does not change, says Koumoundourou, leaving an infinitesimal gap of changes only for extremely extraordinary developments.

In the remaining time (less than 4 weeks), the internal party margins are fortified and the pre-conference dialogue is in the final stretch. It does not pulsate from participation, say executives of “Umbrella”, attributing the lack of participation to low interest.

Participation

The issue of participation is problematic for SYRIZA, to the extent that it is valid nationwide. The other day, in fact, the executives of “Umbrella” who invited the accredited journalists of SYRIZA to a meeting revealed – among other things – an “anxiety” about the lack of interest of the members. Given, however, that after the congress there will be an internal party process for the election of Alexis Tsipras and the Central Committee of the party by its members, the participation bet is both critical and demanding. This is, after all, the first open internal party process that the party will carry out with the participation of its base, therefore comparisons with corresponding procedures of the ND, and especially of KINAL, which are more recent, are inevitable.

The “defense” line of SYRIZA in terms of impressions and participation is that the right to vote for president and Central Committee in the party will have only its registered members and not “passers-by”, “friends” etc., as in corresponding procedures of the other two parties.

Trends

There are procedural details that remain to be agreed soon, but in the political field within the party, the end of the pre-conference dialogue will find SYRIZA with two tendencies and one … intermediate.

If confirmed organizationally, the Congress will find SYRIZA with two blocs: Presidential and “Umbrella”. From the “presidents” will have been towed at the level of “alliance” against the “Umbrella” bloc: “Bridge”, pasokogenes, RENE, with the main issue of the formation of strong presidential forces in the election of members of the new Central Committee.

This Sunday, however, he publishes a pre-conference text-platform and a new “group”, consisting of executives undoubtedly close to Alexis Tsipras, but not organically integrated in the presidential majority.

Fighting

Theoretically, knives on the way to the congress will not come out, as the dramatic developments with precision, energy crisis, Ukrainian and estimates for early elections have inevitably made the internal party eating in SYRIZA completely irrelevant. After all, all its top executives have a sense of self-preservation.

In conjunction with Alexis Tsipras’s directive for an “extroverted, unifying” congress, without the phenomenon of cannibalism and competition of party mechanisms, even under the threat of “deletions”, the terms of the internal dialogue have changed, despite the “base” of presidential “boils”.

The internal opposition, however, firmly reiterates its disagreement with the central elections of Alexis Tsipras (such as the election of president and CoE by the members), with calls for an attempt to turn SYRIZA into a leader-centered party, abolition of accountability, alteration of his left physiognomy, etc., which were repeated by its executives in a recent meeting with journalists who organized.

Nationally

The nationals, in any case, are still a field that unites and does not divide SYRIZA, as is proven in every critical development, such as the Russian invasion. SYRIZA’s positions on Greek-American relations were expressed by Alexis Tsipras’s diplomatic adviser, Vangelis Kalpadakis, at the 3rd Conference on Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, held in Washington.

In a panel discussion “Pillar of Stability: The Evolution of US-Greek Bilateral Relations” (with the participation of Jeffrey Payat, Thanos Dokos – Advisor to the Prime Minister – and ND MP George Koumoutsakos, Vangelis Kalpadakis, transferring the positions confirmed that SYRIZA supports Greek-American cooperation, as evidenced by the actions of its government (so there is convergence on this with the Mitsotakis government), but disagrees with the position that Greece is a “West outpost to the East “, especially since this does not lead to a change in the US-NATO attitude towards the Turkish provocation in Greek-Turkish.

In the middle of the week, there was a “brawl” within SYRIZA with Tsipras’ decision to vote in favor of the agreement with the United Arab Emirates (N. Voutsis pointed out the disagreement), but without any other side effects, after the party line was finally observed.

The social democratic platform of Nikos Androulakis

This Sunday, at a meeting of the Central Committee of KINAL, Nikos Androulakis “trumpets” the slogan for the course of the party’s reconstruction: Unity, self-organization and political autonomy will be the triptych on which the “reset” of PASOK will be based. / KINAL on the way to his conference.

Nikos Androulakis’s speech to the members of the Central Committee will be more “visionary” and political in nature, development of his social democratic platform, and no surprises-announcements of internal party and parapolitical interest are expected.

The president of KINAL will obviously refer to the current political news and the positions of the party, criticizing the government for the accuracy and management of the energy crisis, with a view to European examples and tools that, according to the criticism of KINAL, refuse to follow the government.

In the same context and detailed will be the presentation on how KINAL means the “digital party”, which is a project in the reorganization and reconstruction of the party.

* Republished from the “Chapter” that is circulating