People who do not have first-hand experience of the workings of the left have trouble understanding the deeper causes of the six split-offs that have taken place from within the ranks of the SYRIZA party since 2015, forming Popular Unity, Course of Freedom, MeRA25, Kosmos, Democrats – Progressive Center and New Left.
Anti-austerity sentiment drove out Panagiotis Lafazanis, Zoe Konstantopoulou and Yanis Varoufakis after SYRIZA changed its tune and agreed to the third bailout deal during Greece’s economic crisis. But why were they unable to come to some kind of understanding? Why didn’t they join forces? And why is Petros Kokkalis, who left Alexis Tsipras’ SYRIZA to create a green party of his own, abandoning it now that Tsipras is back as the leader of another party?
New Left was created in response to the shock of Stefanos Kasselakis being elected as SYRIZA’s leader, but why didn’t its cadres return to the SYRIZA fold after he was ousted? And now that New Left has broken apart, why can’t the officials who left join one of the other parties that emerged from a split with SYRIZA? And why is it that the 79-year-old Yannis Dragasakis is taking over the New Left seat in Parliament vacated by Effie Achtsioglou but is not staying with the party, but is sitting as an independent?
