Kasselakis at SYRIZA Congress: I will not become a party leader under a deadline

SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance leader Stefanos Kasselakis challenged those who doubted his leadership by saying that his roots lie in the members and world of SYRIZA, during his keynote speech on Thursdsay at the opening of the party’s 4th Congress at Tae Kwon Do Stadium in Faliro.

“I will not become a president under a deadline, find me an opponent and let’s go,” he said.

Kasselakis described the model of the party he wanted, detailed the pillars for ‘the Greek dream’ and delivered a harsh criticism of ruling New Democracy and its leader and prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Referring to internal party issues, the main opposition leader clarified, “Whoever believed that I was ‘planted’ in the leadership of SYRIZA will now see my own roots. I resort to my roots: to the members and world of SYRIZA. With a full roadmap for reelection, refounding and return of SYRIZA as a ruling party. As the only answer to a rotten, corrupt, and special interest political system. Nobody can hold me back, only the people, the people who stood in line, and those who will stand in lines again, to gain a voice and hope. I am here. I am standing. I am ready. Let us be done with small thngs in order to deal with the large ones, like Mitsotakis’ Right. Find me an opponent. Find me an opponent, and let’s go.”

Kasselakis said that certain party members put themselves above others and “set Europarliament deadlines to a party president elected with 56% four months ago, and expect me to fail.” But those who undermined former SYRIZA leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras ended up nowhere, “begging PASOK to pick them up just in case they can regain their careers.” But in the Left, “the underminers do not get elected leaders.”

Some, he added, believe that by with constant confrontations, differentiations and leaks to the ravens of media propaganda they will manage to crush me in the European elections so they return as [party] saviors.” They are trying to damage the vessel without realizing they are co-passengers, thinking they could pilot the boat they sank, he said.

Changing SYRIZA

SYRIZA will go into a congress to overhaul its founding charter, he underlined. “SYRIZA will become a modern, digitized, European party with internal democracy. This is clear: whoever thinks they can raise a party that was crushed and broken up twice in a few months, let them come assume leadership,” he asserted, noting that “we need time, time to resurrect a decadent, dysfunctional, bureaucratic, ineffective party.”

Kasselakis underlined that “SYRIZA needs to be refounded, the refounding needs unity, and the unity needs a president who is not doubted.”

Outlining what he called the ‘Greek Dream’, the main opposition leader said it was not a utopia or a copy of a so-called American dream, as the government propaganda claimed, but it was based on four points:

a. A patriotic, proud, multifaceted foreign policy b. The restructuring of the state so it becomes effective and functional c. Prosperity and progress for all with labor rights, a modern health system, and inclusive policies, and d. A society of equality, justice, and cultural creation, including a modern education system.

He also criticized New Democracy as “serving a model of violent and absolute concentration of economic activity to the few” and said the Greece remains last in terms of investments compared to the GDP, a deviation of almost 9% from GDP compared to the EU average, and an investment gap of about 17 billion euros.