Business man Stefanos Kasselakis Greece’s main opposition party, leftist Syriza, was elected as its new leader in a second round of internal elections held on Sunday to elect former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ successor as the party’s president.
After reviewing 75 percent 130,000 votes Kasselakis, a businessman and investor in the maritime industry, won 56.7% of the votes, while his main rival, MP and former Labor Minister Efi Ajtsioglu, received 43.3%, the Election Committee said on Monday.
The former Goldman Sachs employee also declared victory for Syriza in front of Syriza headquarters last night. Athensduring Ajtsıoğlu He admitted his defeat and congratulated the winner.
“Today the light has won and hope is ours common future“said the new leader of Syriza, who declared himself gay during the election campaign, making him the first openly gay political leader in Greek history.
Syriza’s internal elections became necessary after: Tsipras resigned He was appointed chairman of the party after the defeat in Greece’s parliamentary elections at the end of last June.
Even though they broke out later within the leftist formation, strong conflicts After learning the outcome of the vote, both politicians agreed between the leaders supporting Kasselakis and the leaders supporting Ajtsioğlu and underlined the need to continue working together.
But the leader of Syriza’s far left wing, the former finance minister Efklidis TsakalotosHe did not congratulate Kasselakis, so it remains to be seen how this faction of the party will react.
Kasselakis, who is quite liberal when it comes to the economy and social rights, 35 years, He was educated in the United States from the age of 14 and received a scholarship to graduate from the Finance department of the University of Pennsylvania.
Although he has only been a member of the party for a month, he seems convinced by the strategy of presenting himself as a man who stands out with his individual efforts and as the “only option” that could unseat the current party. conservative prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
given Kasselakis was not elected as a Syriza member of parliament in the last elections. The main opposition party MPs will not allow the party leader to be in the Parliament.
After bringing Syriza to power lead training finally 15 years, Tsipras resigned at the end of June after the party fell to 18% of the vote – almost half of the votes it achieved in 2019 – losing to Mitsotakis’ conservative New Democracy, which received more than 40% of the vote.
Tsipras was sworn in as the first head of government radical left Greece put an end to this situation in 2015, with the promise to end the austerity measures implemented by the European Union within the framework of financial rescue efforts to pull the country out of its deep debt crisis.
That same year, Tsipras finally agreed to a new bailout package. new round of cuts, This situation created disappointment in a large segment of society and caused many Greeks to turn to the conservative side.