Sokratis Famellos elected SYRIZA leader
On Sunday 24 at 11.25 pm, about an hour after they had said they would post final results, SYRIZA posted that, with 99% of precincts reporting, Famellos was leading with 49.41% of the votes, followed by MP Pavlos Polakis (43.51%), MEP Nikolas Farantouris (5.09%) and regional councilor, ex-mayor of Stylida and actor Apostolos Gletsos (1.99%). It appears that, with Famellos so close to the 50% plus one vote threshold, it has been decided to acknowledge him as leader by acclamation in order to avoid a runoff.
“I want to congratulate Sokratis Famellos. A runoff is not needed. We must stay united to organize the fight against Mitsotakis’ deep state,” Polakis said a few minutes later from party headquarters. Earlier, he had been quoted as saying that “I will not make the SYRIZA people suffer through a second vote.”
“We don’t want any more division and toxicity,” Polakis added in his concession speech.
Farantouris, had already congratulated Famellos about half an hour earlier, declaring that he will be by his side.
Even as he congratulated his main rival, Polakis took a dig at Famellos’ frequent appearances on TV saying that “I will go down in history as the only person to gain this share of the vote, having been in only one (major) TV channel.” He also attacked former leader Stefanos Kasselakis, who has now left the party and on Saturday founded his own, Movement For Democracy.
Famellos, who followed Polakis, said that “we are going back to ‘together’,” also a dig at Kasselakis’ tendency to go his own way, ignoring the party’s elected organs in favor of what he called a direct dialogue with the people.
“It is a good day for SYRIZA, a good day for the Left,” Famellos said, before shaking hands with Polakis.
All four candidates expressed a wish to see the once ruling party resurrected as the main progressive alternative to the conservative New Democracy. A tall order, given a string of recent opinion polls showing SYRIZA retreating deep into single-digit territory percentage-wise.
The number of voters, 70,152, is a sure sign of the party’s diminished status. In the previous leadership contest, just over a year ago, 148,821 had shown up to vote in the first round and 134,420 in the runoff which elected political neophyte Kasselakis. Kasselakis’ main rival, Effi Achtsioglou, and like-minded party members defected to form the New Left party, in December 2023, followed by Kasselakis himself earlier this month. SYRIZA did its best to lower the bar, letting it be known that 50,000 voters would be a good number.
Kathimerini
