Nikos Pappas: I will not be a candidate for the presidency of SYRIZA – 2024-09-29 06:46:27

In the end, the head of SYRIZA’s KO, Nikos Pappas, will not run for the presidency of SYRIZA.

“I will not be a candidate and I think there is a need and those who are not exposed to make a joint effort to remind the people, who will take part in the proceedings, that there is a very strong, dense and solid programmatic and ideological ground that has keep this party in a leading position for many years” he emphasized speaking to ERT.

“Unfortunately, from some quarters it has been questioned and I think there is a possibility to bring it back into the discussion. In other words, I and I believe that the members of SYRIZA are waiting for the candidate presidents to explain how they will implement our collective decisions. For example, we have said that we want to lead a grand electoral progressive alliance which will win the next election. How do the presidential candidates think we’ll get there? They are political agendas. Because you know, if we let the conversation descend into a clash of comparing faces we will have done ourselves and our history an injustice […]he said.

“We have launched an effort to transform the party from 2022. We have laid the groundwork to vote. We decided that the base will vote for the President, for the Central Committee. Now the decision is pending as to whether the deputies will go out with primary elections or not. So should the presidential candidates call for the transformation to be completed or not? Well, there are a lot of key political issues to which those who claim leadership should answer, to discuss them publicly, to politicize the conversation and to get away from absolutisms” underlined Mr. Pappas.

“I will not speak publicly in favor of any candidate”

“Syriza is not the loser from the PASOK debate, alas. But I want to remind you that last year when I was a candidate for the presidency I insisted that a public debate be held and it was not possible, as I had insisted, for the political debate to precede the election of the President. Because when the political debate precedes, the elected leadership is committed to implementing collective decisions. That is, a conference is held, it decides the political direction and assigns responsibility. It gives the responsibility, it gives the mandate to a leadership to implement it. We don’t give blank checks here. A leadership cannot come after the election and say I have a mandate, I bring you revolutionary ideas for the constitution. It doesn’t happen like that. Now everyone will have to say their opinion,” Nikos Pappas added.

At another point in his interview, Mr. Pappas said that he will not publicly support any candidate. “Now I will serve with absolute dedication the institutional role with which my colleagues, male and female deputies honored me, and I think you fully understand what I mean[…] if I had the choice or made the choice to express myself in favor of one and the other, there should automatically be a change in the parliamentary group” he explained.

As for whether he regretted supporting Stefanos Kasselakis last year, he said “last year a political agreement was made clear, declared, it is already posted on the SYRIZA website. I stood publicly in our Central Committee, I voted against the motion of censure, I voted in favor of the open vote in our Central Committee, but it is clear that we have not been able to reach the desired result.

»This is self-evident. At this moment and evaluation I will refrain from doing as you perceive, but I believe that we are entering a process which is absolutely predictable and those who claim leadership must calmly and setting an example in principle decide which direction we will follow, if we will serve the road which we have drawn and of course to vote for the leadership”.

“The base of SYRIZA is divided”

On the poll according to which 53% say the decision to oust Stefanos Kasselakis was wrong, he said “eh, yes, that means it’s also a divided base. It is a structural problem that can only be solved in a democratic way. That’s what it captures.”

“We have said that we want and will claim to lead a large electoral alliance. What does this mean?
It means that our ambition is for each party with its autonomy, certainly with its structure, with its operation, without dissolving, without liquidating, without canceling its historical path, to be part of a great electoral alliance. Because our system is majority […]” emphasized the head of the KO of SYRIZA.

“Mr. Mitsotakis fills the tanks of the extreme right with his policy”

«[…] Mr. Mitsotakis unfortunately with his politics fills the quiver and the tanks of the extreme right, with his boldness in the issues of international relations, with the historical revisionism which Mr. Mitsotakis systematically serves. He has taken all the gossip, all the pioneers, all the spearheads of the domestic extreme right. He has made them part of his own political effort […] all the leadership of the Popular Orthodox Alarm and Mr. Karatzaferi himself. Man does not hide.

“He was turning to the television windows and telling us that Mitsotakis is a world leader. Well, in order for this to be accomplished, oblivion must be established and contracted. In other words, the Greek people should not remember what happened when we had a weak democracy, how much the country suffered due to the fact that half the population was in the shadows, because this disturbs the narrative of the extreme right. You know where the far right is useful? In the slander of civil society, trade unions. To the hatred towards the Left. In these it is very useful and that is why it is used […]

»The Independent Greeks of Panos Kammenos cooperated with the Left openly. People whom political science would place at the far end of the political spectrum would never make such a choice. The Independent Greeks did not stand in the way of any of the bold reforms we made and now people are talking about Panos Kammenos, who now have the entire People’s Orthodox Alarm, no longer in the shop window, in the administration of the New Democracy[…]».

“PtD from the Left or the wider progressive space”

Regarding the election of the President of the Republic, he said that “we propose that the President of the Republic should come from the Left or the broader progressive space. I think the time has come. We can also draw a conclusion that it is good for the country, for the homeland as a whole, that in these positions there are people with great political displacement, with a political history[…] I think that the experience of the last years has shown that it is better for the country to have in this state office a person who has a large political displacement. That is, when it was the late Kostis Stephanopoulos, the late Karolos Papoulias, the late Prokopis Pavlopoulos.

“They are not people from the faction in which I was born and have served all my life. But they are people of great political displacement. They improved, increased the country’s ability to intervene internationally. These are issues that we need to look at. And I say that our position is that the time has come for a President of the Republic from the Left for the progressive space”.