SYRIZA: Easter Kasselakis in Corfu and the month that decides its future – 2024-05-06 18:51:38

Easter in Corfu is unique compared to others. As a mix of traditions, basically Orthodox and Catholic, the way of celebration exudes a culture of mutual acceptance and coexistence of the different.

Stefanos Kasselakis chose to be on the island of Faiakon these days, living this special experience. He finished the much-discussed “cruise” in the Aegean and “flew” from yesterday, Maundy Thursday, already for the “countess” of June.

He chose her perhaps to bring a piece back to Koumoundourou from a broken boot. Those large clay jugs that residents throw from their balconies on Holy Saturday morning for favor and good luck, warding off evil. He will be present himself at this custom.

Alone and all of them

This aura, this positive energy, is what the president of SYRIZA is looking for in the last 30-35 days before the European elections. The outcome of the broad battle that, on a nationwide level, he will fight for the first time as leader of the faction is -almost- a given that it will define the developments both within the party and more generally in the center-left space.

St. Kasselakis has chosen a lonely path, without considering the risk of his choice in the least. As can be seen from his movements, he is not interested in anything else at the moment a personal victory of his over all his opponents.

Surrounded only by people of his absolute trust, he plans and acts guided by whatever he believes will lead him safely and surely to his final destination. And at least until June 9, he is not going to take a step back, vigorously sticking to his tactics.

He wants to set the next day

With the second place in the euro polls almost a monopoly according to poll analysts, it is frantically chasing the reduction of the margin from the first ND. There are no miraculous news, but he does not intend to give up this battle.

On the contrary, he is intensifying his efforts, with fresh alliances in neighboring or non-neighboring areas, and he will continue to do what his conscience and his communication staff dictate in order to cover – to a large extent – the distance that was born in the previous year.

He knows anyway in advance that with any percentage over 17.83% in last summer’s parliamentary elections it will be impossible to dispute by anyone who looks for it. So he will acquire the right to designate exclusively the next day. Even more so if this potential increase in SYRIZA’s percentages is combined with the intended, possibly single-digit, difference from the top.

He hasn’t forgotten the questionnaire

Having been in a position of power ever since, he will no doubt have the flexibility to move as he believes the next stage of SYRIZA’s evolution requires.

It will come as no surprise if, according to reports, pulls out of his desk drawer and dusts off the questionnaire which he had asked the members of the party to answer in order to discern the prevailing trends. An ideological questionnaire, highly identifying for the party.

It has been said by St. Kasselakis that he is not going to proceed with a change of name or direction, but let nothing be ruled out. Everything finds its time and that initiative, which had given rise to fierce reactions within the party, was not done just for the impressions of the moment.

The permanent opening to his right

The approaches of St. Kasselakis in the centrist space, if not on the fringes of the “popular right”, with the most recent step the obvious collaboration with Aris Spiliotopoulos, have not happened by chance. Everything else in fact. Alexis Tsipras had also dared to make some such openings, but his past stopped him from making bigger openings. Go with me regularly.

For his successor, an alien politician with a business background and other methods, it is much more accessible to talk with people who ten years ago would not have even reached the door of Koumoundourou, let alone climbed to the 7th floor, officially becoming strategic and communication advisors.

Because the rallying of the traditional base remains low – around 60%, in contrast to the leakages to the New Left which have crystallized in double digits, the SYRIZA president will know that if the percentage increase is achieved, it will be due to: a ) or to those who systematically abstain from the process but have returned b) or to a protest vote from other pools.

He should then convince all these voters to stay in SYRIZA by creating a new solid base. A new base that, in any case, seeks to build gradually from people without a particular political background and who move without remorse from one place to another.

Is there a new split scenario?

And if his internal party opponents, who after the February Congress have retreated, maintaining a waiting attitude and fish silence as a form of truce, show resistance to new presidential initiatives, it is considered certain that the exit door will be opened for them first.

Not to those he has recently welcomed by speaking the same language with them, even if they come from completely different worlds. Because he will have relied on many of them to reach the desired result for him: the overthrow of the – for five years already – established scene in the country and his rise to power. He has experienced a split, he is not afraid of a new one, of a smaller scope.

Social front without Androulakis – New Left

Given the “social front” envisioned by the 36-year-old politician it does not concern the PaSoK of Nikos Androulakis or the New Left of those former comrades who declared war on him from his first public appearance as a presidential candidate in SYRIZA. From them he has taken distances that do not come together so effortlessly – as is also true from the opposite side of course.

Other “friends” will be addressed with an open invitation and the possibility of collaborations. He has shown it in every way so far.

With him always in the central role of protagonist and leader. He does not even negotiate this. Always under the condition that his electoral power will be so strong that he will leave no room for third parties to put obstacles and stumbling blocks for him.