The SYRIZA Central Committee backed Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras‘ proposal to complete the bailout agreement and then go to an emergency party congress in September.
The majority of the 200-strong Committee decided after a 12-hour session that the bailout agreement is a priority, while party rebels called on the Prime Minister to end negotiations with creditors immediately and return to the drachma.
The Committee discussed how to address the serious disputes within the party to the prospect of further austerity. The options being discussed included a grass roots party referendum on whether the government should continue bailout talks with creditors and seal a deal, or hold an emergency party congress in September.
“We have to agree that we can’t go on this way,” Tsipras told Committee members earlier, adding that “the absurdity of this peculiar and unprecedented dualism” within the party must stop.
Extreme-left dissenters, known as the Left Platform, argued that SYRIZA has abandoned its principles over the past six months under the country’s popular Prime Minister. They have openly voiced support that Greece should turn its back to the euro as its national currency.
“This country no longer has democracy, but a peculiar type of totalitarianism – a dictatorship of the euro,” said Left Platform leader Panagiotis Lafazanis.
Greek Parliament President Zoe Konstantopoulou, who belongs to the dissenters, said that SYRIZA “did not get a people’s mandate to have the country shackled with an austerity Memorandum.” She also said that it is inconceivable that the party implements “the exact opposite of its pre-election promises.”
After the completion of the session, Lafazanis said that it “makes absolutely no sense to have a congress in September, after the parliament votes a binding austerity agreement, since participants will be called retrospectively to ratify a faits accomplis highly detrimental for the country.”
During the marathon session, 18 Committee members – three MPs among them – resigned from the Central Committee, giving another blow to Greece’s ruling party.
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