Major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras was elected President of the party he controls with 74.07 percent of the vote at the finish of its Congress on July 14 where the loose collection of disparate factions was combined into a single entity.
Tsipras received 2,477 votes to only 157 for Sissy Vovou and Panos Iliopoulos, who got 22 votes. Tsipiras, who took the party to a close second-place finish in the 2012 elections, has been its spokesman against austerity and in international appearances.
He has said he wants Greece to get away from the deals with international lenders putting up rescue money to keep the economy alive and that he wouldn’t fire any public worker nor stop the runaway spending that caused Greece’s ruin but has offered no answers as to where he would get the money to keep services going and keep needless workers in redundant positions.
There were 3430 registered voters at the conference and a total of 3,412 votes cast, of which 3,344 were valid votes. There were a total of 68 ‘invalid’ votes and 688 blank votes from people apparently unsatisfied with all the candidates to lead the party.
In statements after his election, Tsipras said the founding conference held to create the new SYRIZA was a “major step and a historic milestone for the Left and democracy,” although the movement to create a single umbrella for the motley group of Maoists, Trotskyites, Anarchists, ecologists and extremists was bitterly opposed by WWII hero Manolis Glezos, whose words went unheeded.
“Three and a half thousand delegates from all over Greece have put their stamp on the birth of the new. With open and vibrant democratic dialogue. With clear decisions. We have taken the historic step. From tomorrow, our new party, men and women together, more united and stronger than ever, embark on a great and victorious course: To stop the social destruction and to rebuild Greece,” he said, the new agency ANA reported.
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