MP Sokratis Famellos has been elected the new leader of SYRIZA party on Sunday. The election means a new page for the left-wing party that has suffered the loss of 18 lawmakers since the parliamentary elections in summer 2023 and lost its status of “Greece’s main opposition party” earlier this month.
58-year-old Famellos received 49.41% of the votes, followed by MP Pavlos Polakis (43.51%), MEP Nikos Farantouris (5.09%) and ex-mayor of Stylida and actor Apostolos Gletsos (1.99%).
Theoretically the new leader should have received at least 50% of the votes. However, his main competitor Polakis accepted his defeat and refrained from challenging Famellos in a second round next Sunday, saying “I will not make the people of SYRIZA suffer with a second vote.”
“We don’t want any more division and toxicity,” Polakis added.
Following his victory, Famellos, thanked his voters saying “we are going back to ‘together’,” also a dig at Kasselakis’ tendency to go his own way, ignoring the party’s elected organs in favor of what he called a direct dialogue with the people.
“It is a fresh start, good day for SYRIZA, a good day for the Left,” Famellos said, before shaking hands with Polakis.
A total of 70,152 voters participated in the election, a number much lower than in the elections of Kasselakis in September 2023, however, members of SYRIZA expressed their satisfactions they had set the bar at 50,000 voters.
Famelos, a chemical engineer by profession and SYRIZA MP since 2015, is considered to be moderate and is expected to unite again the several fractions that remained in the party, after the runaway of the New Left MPs in December 2023 and the 5 lawmakers who joined Stefanos Kasselakis, the deposed SYRIZA leader, who now goes his own ways. In his campaign he openly said to seek cooperation with other parties in order to have a strong Left in the Greek political landscape.
More on SYRIZA and Kasselakis HERE on KTG.
