Haritsis: Social discontent should become a current of disobedience in the Right – 2024-04-04 09:42:08

“Today, we are opening a battle front against the Far Right. We do not caress, in the name of appeasement, xenophobic and reactionary perceptions” said the president of the KO of the New Left, Alexis Haritsis, speaking at the start of the work of the first meeting of the transitional pan-Hellenic coordinating body of the party.

On the way to the European elections

Alexis Haritsis developed the strategy and key programmatic positions of the New Left, in the run-up to the European elections, while at the same time harshly criticizing SYRIZA and PASOK.

In the run-up to the European elections, we are formulating a program with clear priorities and options:

-Taxation of wealth. To ease the social majority and support the social state. We are clear. Let those who profit from it pay for the crisis. To return excess profits to society. With salary increases, with substantial reductions in indirect taxes, with the imposition of a ceiling on basic necessities.

-Down with war and weapons. If the Left continues to submit to the rampant militarization of Europe, we will soon see the end of the era of peace, stability and security before us. And let’s not forget the other thing: the threat of war becomes the tool for the subjugation of social claims.

– A home for everyone. The model of frenzied tourist development dissolves social cohesion. We say it clearly: a ban on the Golden Visa, barriers to Airbnb, programs to open foreclosed homes with energy upgrades, a subsidy program for young people to get the right to decent housing.

-Just climate transition: complete weaning from fossil fuels, plan for the development of RES, investment in energy communities, conflict with profiteering financial and political interests.

-Church-state separation.

And last commitment: End cover up. An end to the impunity of the political system and the policy of cover-up. We say it and we mean it. The tragedy of Tempe and its handling, this vulgar government cover-up, must lead the country to a new and determined effort to restore citizens’ confidence in our Republic. Nothing ended. Let Mr. Mitsotakis and Mr. Karamanlis hear this too. Your days of political impunity are numbered!

Mr. Haritsis argued that there is a “pervasive sense of questioning the government of the Right and the politics of sovereignty” and added: “The debate on Tempi proved it emphatically. Where the wall of concealment and silence breaks every day.”

Four months of the New Left – The report

Taking stock of the four months since the formation of the New Left, he said: » It is time to take stock. We know our weaknesses. Weaknesses associated with building a new party from scratch. But we also know our capabilities. We showed them on the major fronts of the period inside and outside the Parliament: On the front for the defense of the Constitution. In the battle for Peace. In the fight against the Tempe crime cover-up. These are the struggles that broke the showcase of Mr. Mitsotakis’ politics. But these are also the struggles that challenged the defeatist and essentially compromise policy of SYRIZA and PASOK. The social opposition, the discomfort of the citizens, the general feeling that it can’t go any further is what determines our choices”.

He then asked the main question: “the reasonable question that Greek society asks us is: what will you do to get the Right to leave?” to add that “unfortunately, the necessary conditions for the overall reconstruction of the space do not exist. They do not exist under the responsibility of the SYRIZA and PASOK leaderships. Which reproduce logics of hegemony without social effect”.

Harsh criticism of SYRIZA, PaSoK

He then harshly criticized the main parties of the left and center-left, SYRIZA and PASOK: “The SYRIZA party has now definitively mutated. His economic positions on cutting taxes on the upper and upper echelons speak to the ND and trickle down logic. His positions on critical geopolitical and national issues point to the most outdated ethno-populism. The only thing the rhetorical crowns do is to offer Mr. Mitsotakis a way out. The daily show of the mainstream media’s hyper-promotion of its president’s personal life, in lifestyle terms, only shows one thing: SYRIZA is not a threat to the dominant system of power. It is an embedded comma.

Referring to PASOK, he said that it “faces a serious problem of strategy” and explained: “It is stuck in a constant vacillation between the modern trends of European social democracy and an old-style small party concept. He agrees to central choices of the ND and when he feels that this leads to a dead end, he folds into positions that do not emit a clear stigma. It is an average party. And this, combined with the conservative voices within it, makes it uninteresting for the many and many who are looking for a convincing opposition to the Right.”

For the New Left he underlined: The New Left will insist:

– to the priority of the political content
– to the open call to build together the great house of the left in the country.
– in the conflict with the conservative leaderships of SYRIZA and PASOK and in the effort to release the living forces, political and social, that are uncomfortable with their choices.
– in the programmatic dialogue on specific positions. It is clear from our side that we are not concerned with a management logic that will remind Mr. Mitsotakis in strategic choices. That our ambition is to radically change the way politics is carried out to strengthen and empower those who are anxious and expect the overthrow and defeat of the Right in order to improve their lives.
Referring to the European elections, he said: “We want the European elections to transform social discontent into a political current of disobedience to the Right. We will not let the Far Right reap social discontent.

We know that the policies of inequality implemented by the neoliberal right feed irrationality, xenophobia, fascism. And we know that the only way for our country not to become another version of the “either Macron or Le Pen” dilemma is for the Left to express those who today – rightly – feel that the dominant political system is indifferent to their lives.

In closing, he noted: “The battle of the European elections is existential! And we can win it! To keep the cause of social justice alive in this place. To regain the lost credibility of an entire faction.”

RES-EMP