Four candidates were in the running this Sunday in the Syriza primaries: MEP Nikolas Farantouris; soap opera actor and former mayor of Stylida, Apostolos Gletsos; and MPs Pavlos Polakis and Sokratis Famellos. All went to the polls with a promise to rebuild the party and get it back on track after one of the most turbulent and chaotic years in its history.
With satisfactory participation data for the party – 70,152 people voted in these elections -, after 11 p.m. (local time in Greece), the final results arrived: Sokratis Famellos (Athens, 1966) won by a very narrow margin (49.41% of the votes). of votes) to the Cretan Pavlos Polakis, who narrowly failed (43.51%).
A Syriza MP since 2015 and Deputy Minister of Environment and Energy between 2016 and 2019, Famellos based his campaign on the idea of “rebooting” Syriza “to make it stronger and bigger”. For his part, Pavlos Polakis congratulated Famellos and also insisted on the need to unite “to overthrow the Mitsotakis State”. [primer ministro]”.
Outside Koumoundourou, the party headquarters, the new party president predicted a coherent future: “It’s a good day for Syriza and for the left. » He also congratulated the rest of the candidates and the various electoral commissions and highlighted his new responsibility. “We are not celebrating, but we are happy and we are aware of the work we have. It is a response to those who questioned the future of Syriza. […] We are going to rebuild our house. Famellos emphasized the idea of “getting back together,” something that didn’t characterize the lineup last year.
Socrates Famellos, the favorite
From eight in the morning until eight in the evening (in principle, polling stations were supposed to close at seven, but in the middle of the afternoon the party decided to extend this time by an additional hour) Syriza bases moved to the various authorized polling stations. voted.
At Athens 17th-155th Primary School, in the Ambelokipi district, in the afternoon, the flow of people was constant. Yanis, 46, said he voted for Famellos “because he is the only one who can rebuild the party” and called Kasselakis’ year a “disaster”.
Thanos, 34 years old and also a voter of Famellos, had the same opinion, “the most honest and who has done a good job of representation in Parliament. I also voted for him because I believe he can unify the party. “I’m not voting for Syriza anymore, but I wanted to vote for what I think is the best solution for Syriza, because it’s a very important part of the left.”
Concerning Polakis, another favorite, he declared that “he has too much temper”, and concerning Farantouris and Gletsos, he assured that “they are not strong enough”. Nikos (60 years old) and Stella (57 years old) also opted for Sokratis Famellos, because he was the candidate who trusted them “the most”. Dimitra Kavatha, 63, admitted having voted for Kasselakis a year ago and regretting it: “It has been shown that she did not have clear ideas,” she adds. She also voted for Famellos.
For days, the name of Sokratis Famellos, current president of the parliamentary group after the departure of Tsipras, was strongly mentioned as a possible winner of the elections. Linked to the left party since its creation, he is currently in charge of energy and environment issues within his parliamentary group. He is also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he participates in issues related to sustainable development, climate change, migration movements and other social issues.
A year of chaos after the electoral debacle
To understand why Syriza arrived yesterday at these primaries in one of the most vulnerable situations in recent years, we must look at the two convocations to the general elections of 2023, when the left party, still with Alexis Tsipras at its head, lost more. of half of its deputies. The reactions were immediate and a few days later, Tsipras resigned and left all his positions within the party.
A few weeks after the resignation of the historic leader of the Greek left, at the end of September 2023, primary elections were called to elect a new president. After a fierce campaign between what had been Alexis Tsipras’ right-hand man and former Minister of Labor between 2016 and 2019, Efi Ahtsioglou, and newcomer Stefanos Kasselakis, against all expectations, the latter won. Kasselakis is not a typical candidate: he moved to the United States with his family when he was 13 and only returned to Greece a few months before. His work as an advisor at Goldman Sachs, his wealthy position and his status as outsider They have generated certain apprehensions and disaffection; but the base supported him. The reason was obvious: many of those who voted for him considered that a figure from outside the party would bring new ideas and a fresh air to the party; the change that was needed at the time after the electoral disaster of the general election.
“At first I wasn’t against Kasselakis. I obviously realized that it didn’t fit 100% into the context of Syriza, but I thought it would bring something new or different. I could see some red flagbut I decided not to pay attention to it,” says Dimitris (this is not his fictitious name at the request of the source). Yesterday he voted for Nikolas Farantouris, but “if Famellos wins, everything will be fine too,” he said on Sunday afternoon at the Ambelokipi polling station. “I voted for Farandouris knowing he probably won’t come out,” he said.
Stefanos Kasselakis, in the Greek media, was nicknamed the messiah and, echoing this moniker, he promised to unify the party and revive it. Nothing could be further from reality: a few weeks after the primaries, eleven party heavyweights, led by Efi Ahtsioglou, left the party (and the parliamentary group) and created a new party: the New Left.
Kasselakis’ reign was short-lived: one year. Last September, after a few months of ups and downs and too many controversies, a faction, “the group of 87” – supporters of former prime minister and former party leader Alexis Tsipras – caused his departure. The dismissal of Kasselakis opened yet another crisis in the team, once again decapitated and much more weakened than a year ago.
For his part, Stefanos Kasselakis took advantage of this electoral weekend at Syriza to present his own party: the Movement for Democracy, described by himself as “the most modern and participatory political party that Greece has ever known” . The name was chosen by Kasselakis supporters after three days of voting.
In Syriza, the big challenge for Sokratis Famellos will now be to find the identity of a party which, after the various dissolutions, is no longer the main opposition party. Famellos will have to relaunch a Syriza without direction, with too many families and leaderships, and he will have to work to sew up the seams if he wants to regain that shine of 2015, when the party won almost with an absolute majority in the general elections, to hold head the troika and become the beacon of the European left.
