SYRIZA leader Sokratis Famellos (right) is seen at a meeting of the party’s parliamentary group, in the Greek Parliament in Athens on December 4, 2024. [YIANNIS LIAKOS/INTIME NEWS]
Whether the election of Sokratis Famellos as leader of SYRIZA is a new start for the left or just another episode in the party’s implosion is difficult to determine at present. Certainly, the SYRIZA story over the last year has been a tragicomedy that has never failed to surprise. With just 47 MPs after a stunning electoral defeat in June of last year, SYRIZA comprises just 29 of them now. It has been an incredible psychodrama of four successive splits. The actors apparently believed they were on the stage at Herodes Atticus, but what the audience saw was a melodrama worthy of trashy afternoon TV. They have simply switched off.
The change that is wanted can be delayed for what seems an eternity until a new leader emerges who can seize the opportunity
At a smaller theater, PASOK has asked itself some serious questions, but has not really found the answers. Whether the new collective leadership of PASOK can be sustained and whether it can have an impact remains to be seen. But having been condemned to be a sideshow, it has now found itself in the spotlight – though not primarily because of its own efforts. The implosion of SYRIZA has made the dwarf of PASOK into a self-declared giant.
Beyond these dramas, however, is a very important question – or, rather, two questions. What is the “left”? And, what is it for? Both questions apparently weighed on the mind of Alexis Tsipras as he stood down as SYRIZA leader. Both now take on a wider resonance with center-left PASOK coming to the front of the stage.
Political time is different from ordinary time, as Lenin noted. The change that is wanted can be delayed for what seems an eternity until a new leader emerges who can seize the opportunity. Today in Europe, the identity and purpose of the left, broadly or narrowly defined, is again unclear. The squabbles have recurred in France. The left is almost invisible in Italy. Olaf Scholz and his SPD in Germany face almost certain defeat in February’s early elections. Pedro Sanchez’s position in Spain is very fragile. Keir Starmer has only been British PM since July, but he’s struggling to establish a strong narrative as to why he is in power.
In Greece, PASOK has lacked a strong raison d’etre for 15 years, since George Papandreou elaborated his new alternative in 2009. In 2015, SYRIZA came to power not because it had created a radical ideological hegemony, but because voters wanted to fight back against the Troika. When the struggle failed, Tsipras was left with an appeal that was more managerial than ideological. Is Famellos – SYRIZA’s erstwhile parliamentary leader and a former junior minister – the figure to overcome these weaknesses and turn the party’s fortunes around? He seems to be the answer merely because he isn’t Stefanos Kasselakis. In any event, rivals like Pavlos Polakis still have the scope to undermine him.
Everyone knows that a winning alternative to Kyriakos Mitsotakis will require a party or an alliance that can unite the center-left and left. Like in France before Mitterrand, though, voters are obliged to sit and wait for a new plausible leader to emerge. Certain realities appear, however. Nikos Androulakis has hitherto lacked the stature to unite a fragmented left. Kasselakis now struggles to remain relevant, as do other smaller parties. Famellos, at present, has no greater weight than the others. That leaves Tsipras, a man watching, waiting, and perhaps meddling. At present, he remains too toxic a figure for some in PASOK. But this may lessen. He would have far more leverage to remold the left after the next election if Mitsotakis had won again, and Androulakis had not performed above expectations. The best calculation for Tsipras is to wait for the Darwinian struggle among the current players to show they all lack strength to win. SYRIZA needs a quick “win” – such as bringing former finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos and former labor minister Effie Achtsioglou back in – to restore its profile and to show it is changing the landscape. But whether Famellos can be the animateur of such a regrouping is open to serious doubt. Again, the logic of regrouping favors Tsipras, but not yet. As we wait for the political clock to move forward, the frustrating irony – not just in Greece, but also across Europe – is that so many of the biggest issues we face should logically favor the center-left or left. Whether it is climate change, securing energy supplies, managing an aging population, or upgrading skills for tomorrow’s labor market, there is an agenda that favors a more proactive state: The pendulum has shifted away from austerity and neoliberalism. But despite these favorable conditions, Greece waits for a leader who can reshape the opposition. At least part of the audience wants no more of the cheap drama.
Kevin Featherstone is emeritus professor at the London School of Economics.