After 22 years of leading Greece’s KKE Communist party, which is languishing near the bottom of opinion polls and is a marginal entity in the Greek Parliament with almost no influence, Aleka Papariga could be stepping down, the Athens newspaper Kathimerini reported.
According to the daily newspaper’s sources, Papariga is contemplating not running for the post of General Secretary at the party’s 19th congress which is scheduled to begin at KKE’s headquarters in Perissos, northern Athens, on April 11. .
Papariga had hinted at the possibility of stepping down in recent interviews with local media. Speaking to Kathimerini in March, she said it was up to the party’s congress to determine its next leadership, while in the beginning of the year, she had told Mega television station that KKE had developed a new generation of highly capable party officials.
At the congress, Papariga is expected to present the central committee’s suggestions regarding the party’s duties, program and action until the next congress. She was the first woman to head a major political party in Greece although the Communist’s role has been marginalized for years and has little following beyond that of symbolic.
Papariga, 67, started in politics as a peace activist and joined KKE in 1968, at a time it was banned by the ruling right-wing military junta repressive dictatorship. In recent years, she has spoken out vehemently against the austerity measures imposed by the government on the orders of international lenders but said she didn’t want to lead the country, only to oppose whoever was in power.
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