ATHENS – The major opposition and sliding SYRIZA fell into further disarray when its central committee voted No Confidence in leader Stefanos Kasselakis – a year after he took over – setting up a rush for new elections.
It was uncertain whether he would seek to get back into the driver’s seat after being censured on a vote of 163-120, and all but 76 who phoned in voting in secret, which he compared to hooded collaborators in World War II pointing out the resistance.

It was the culmination of a tumultuous near 12 months in power for the Greek-American businessman who – after failing to be elected to Parliament – used a slick social media campaign to take over the faltering party, which fell further.

He had warned the party would dissolve if his critics prevailed and after losing the vote said he felt “liberated” and blamed a “bureaucracy, a party nomenclatura” of rejecting the voters in the party who elected him.

But Sokratis Famellos, the former head of the parliamentary group who was ousted by Kasselakis fired back saying that, “We (the central committee members) and the MPs were elected by the party base, too.”

The vote means an extraordinary congress must be held in the next three months for candidates to make their cases, leaving the party in limbo as it has fallen behind the PASOK Socialists to third in two surveys and fifth in another.

Kasselakis didn’t tip his hand about whether he would try to take back the helm but the party’s most provocative and divisive figure, former deputy health minister Pavlos Polakis said – who supported and then undercut Kasselakis – will run.

When a group of dissidents left SYRIZA after Kasselakis took over and even as criticism of his leadership grew, Polakis stuck by him before being ejected from the parliamentary group for insulting an aide to Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis.

But Kasselakis then reinstated him only to be rebuked by Polakis for not consulting him first, the former minister then calling for a leadership election to replace the man he had supported.

Without a leader, the party will be represented at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) by new parliamentary group leader Nikos Pappas, who escaped jail after being convicted of trying to sell TV licenses when SYRIZA was in power.

Addressing the Central Committee after the result was announced, Kasselakis said that he felt “release, because all the citizens witnessed the censure I have lived with since the first day I was elected President.”
He accused “various factions” within the party’s bureaucracy and elite of “refusing to accept the vote of the party members” and said his opponents had resorted to “practices that are not in line with the traditions of the left.”

He added: “My decisions will be announced to those I have and always will answer to, the people of SYRIZA,” although the vote means the party is essentially rudderless even as PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis also faces a challenge.

That has given an open playing field to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his ruling New Democracy Conservatives who, despite not having any real opposition, are falling in popularity after critics complained about the arrogance of power.