A motion of censure against SYRIZA president Stefanos Kasselakis was reportedly approved on Sunday by members of the leftist party’s central committee members, with 163 voting in favor and 123 against.
The unprecedented development means that Kasselakis, a newcomer to Greece’s political scene prior to 2023, has lost the confidence of the party’s most important internal institution.
According to media reports on Sunday afternoon immediately after the result was leaked, the next step now is the convening of an extraordinary conference to decide on a new internal election for a SYRIZA president.
The voting process was secret, using ballot boxes, something that Kasselakis’ supporters bitterly opposed a day earlier during debate over the motion of censure.
First Kasselakis reaction
Taking to the podium after the result was announced: Kasselakis said:
“I am redeemed because all of the citizens saw the censure that I’ve been experiencing since the first day I was elected president. It’s unprecedented, in the political history of the country, that a party bureaucracy doesn’t accept the vote of the grassroots from the very first day…Now you know everything. We’ve reached the point where the party bureaucracy and the various factions employ practices that do not belong to the left, they even managed to humiliate the honorable members of the committee by putting hoods on their heads,” he said, with the later comment being a reference to a secret ballot for the motion of censure.
