Ex SYRIZA Kasselakis presents his new party “Movement for Democracy”

Deposed SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis announced on Saturday his new party. Its’ name is “Movement for Democracy” (Kinima Dimokratias/Κίνημα Δημοκρατίας), a name it was voted in a poll by his supporters.

The party is neither left or right, and it moves somewhere between Left and Center, Kasselakis said without specifying the exact distances to the

τ’σ νειτηερ λεφτ ορ ριγητ βθτ ιτ, he revealed on Saturday, at the new party’s founding declaration meeting held at the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation on Pireos Street.

“It is a name intrinsic to our identity, we became a movement from resistance to the dissolution of internal party democracy,” he told an audience at the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation in central Athens.

The party’s ambition is “to embody the return of real democracy to the country that gave birth to it,” he stressed.

The name was put up for a vote among members who had suggested several options during past days.

“Movement for Democracy is a governing movement,” Kasselakis said. “It is your movement, it was born on the path of those left outside behind locked doors, it was born in the hearts of decisive people, claim it as your own, care for it, grow it,” he added.

Attending the meeting were five former SYRIZA and currently independent deputies. His husband and his father were sitting in the front row.

Party identity

Kasselakis said that by traditional ideological terms, the party would be categorized as “contemporary center-left”. As he described it, “We are the center-left of the 21st century that was 24 years late arriving in Greece,” adding that “we are a patriotic party without any feelings of guilt.”

In addition, he underlined, “Under traditional ideological terms, it is a center-left party. Not because it has a little of the left and a little of the center; it is more leftist than the left, more centrist than the center because it is more democratic, it is participatory, it is the party of the contemporary center-left. The arrogance of a thinking elite against so-called clueless voters does not fit in our party.” He added that only a contemporary, open party can revive the center-left.

The new-party leader said Movement for Democracy incorporated “the entire democratic and progressive DNA of Greece”, which he said the party claimed as part of a collective Greek memory. Speaking of his vision for the party, he said, “We want a party bravely democratic, that will be built from the social base and will give its members a voice and strength, with more transparency and real meritocracy. Here a citizen will know that what the base decides through its vote will not be changed by the leadership.”

Among the party’s positions he mentioned were the following: a new program for reindustrialization, by utilizing European resources; a flexible, smart state that can intervene when necessary; “an honest separation of state and church,” as other contemporary European states; deep changes in police ranks and controls in for the National Intelligence Service (EYP) to protect individual rights; quality public education; an independent justice system; and the right to work, with work for all and the reintroduction of rules in workplaces. In terms of taxation, “every citizen will pay depending on his capabilities, based on a ten-year payment system.”

Kasselakis also underlined the importance of exclusivity, of having a party financed only by members and friends (with finances published quarterly), and he expressed support for the European Union and a progressive Europe independent in energy and defense.

SYRIZA

Meanwhile in SYRIZA is getting ready to vote for its new leader tomorrow, Sunday. There are four candidates in the race. If one of them will not gather the absolute majority, a second round between the two with the most votes is scheduled for the following Sunday, December 1.

With the two latest resignation beginning of the week, SYRIZA lost its status as Greece’s main opposition party.