After years of silence, former prime minister Alexis Tsipras returned to the spotlight with a book and a hint of creating a new political party to unite the progressive forces of the country, a “political big bang” as he described it.
At an event on Wednesday evening, Tsipras launched his book “Ithaca” in which he gave his own perspective of the dramatic political developments with the country’s lenders in summer 2015 thus criticizing his former cabinet ministers but with few points of self-criticism.
Despite the criticism, though, several of his former ministers had followed his invitation and attended the book launch even though at a distance, “banned” to sit in the upper floor of Pallas theater, away from the crowd that had flocked to the event.
The former left-wing premier did not disappoint his supporters. Following the rumors of last months, that he will establish a new party to challenge conservative PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis in the 2027 elections, Tsipras extended an invitation for “self-organization” with the aim of “re-establishing” the democratic and progressive powers of the country.
He spoke of the “new post-government” and of a “large, colorful, dynamic but programmatically solid progressive coalition, capable of embracing all left-wing and democratic citizens and claiming progressive governance in the next elections”.
Addressing the audience, he strongly criticized the government, but also the leadership of the current opposition for its inability to form an alternative proposal for governance. “They are divided,” he said, “over “who will be first in the village”.
The central part of his speech was the call for the re-establishment of the democratic party. As he said, “the way out today is through our intervention, the progressive and democratic citizens, to give a fresh breath that will sweep away the dormant bureaucracies. A new wind of change, which, however, in order to come to the country, must start with us first.”
He stressed that “processes of re-establishing the political and organizational existence” are required, with the aim not of recycling elites and bureaucracies, but of creating a party that will once again become “a leading force, for the people and for the place”.
He did not elaborate much on his new party plans, however, everything indicates it will be announced in the spring of 2026.
Alexis Tsipras spoke about the disappointed voters who “must get up from the couch,” and his plans appear to target the approximately 25-30% of the “undecided” in the so-called “gray zone” in the public opinion polls.
These are leftists, center-leftists and centrists.This audience is close to or overlaps with the 31.5% that Tsipras’s then SYRIZA garnered in the 2019 elections – when it became the official opposition and with a series of mistakes he and the introverted SYRIZA babel of constituents ended up at 17.8% in the 2023 elections.
Time will show, whether he will please only his “older fans” or manage to win also the younger generations on his side.
Middle-aged and elderly men was the majority of those who joined the event, but ver few youngsters, people reported on social media.
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