In the heavy atmosphere caused by his sentence Stefanou Kasselakis “whoever doesn’t like it leaves” to the party leaders and while the clouds gather in the relationship between Kasselakis and KO President Sokratis Famellos, the SYRIZA Parliamentary Group meets in the afternoon.
The Commission meets at 6:30 p.m., following Kasselakis’ outburst to his interlocutors, as well as the “attack of friendship” that he immediately engaged in with phone calls, successive meetings in Parliament with executives who left angry, but also “conciliatory” posts saying that “everything is fine”.
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Hot-Cold Tactics
At the same time, spokesperson Voula Kehagia assured yesterday that the leadership does not want any new departures in an attempt to foster negative impressions. Of course, this picture is anything but reassuring for the future of the party, since the leadership followed a similar “hot and cold” tactic in the period before the two previous splits (Umbrella, Group 6+6).
It should be recalled that even then the harsh personal attacks from Kasselakis’s entourage against the dissidents were alternated with assurances of unity. In addition, the army of Internet trolls continues to attack the dissidents on a daily and concerted basis, just as it did immediately before the two previous splits.
Famellos’ intervention brought an explosion for Kasselakis
The atmosphere is, however, also aggravated by the distance that now seems to have been created between Stefanos Kasselakis and Sokratis Famellos. In fact, informed sources claim that Mr. Kasselakis’ outburst was not the result of the positions of the representatives of the so-called “87” group that took the lead against the discrediting of Alexis Tsipras, but was a result of Mr. Famellos’ intervention.
It is recalled that Mr. Famellos allegedly suggested that, for institutional reasons, the SYRIZA conference should not coincide with the internal elections of the PASOK party, which apparently was the cause or occasion of Mr. Kasselakis’ attack. However, the SYRIZA president’s behavior caused reactions even among those who are not among the dissidents.
Nikos Pappas also reacted
It is characteristic that during the conference meeting his close collaborator Nikos Pappas allegedly asked him to leave. And yesterday the party’s MP Haris Mamoulakis publicly disapproved of what Mr Kasselakis said, noting that it did not correspond to the spirit of SYRIZA. “This phrase alienates me,” he said when asked to comment on the phrase “who doesn’t like to leave!” and stressed that it “does not harmonize with the values and principles of the progressive center-left space.”