The main left-wing party in Greece, the Progressive Alliance known as Syriza, will continue for another week after none of the five candidates to lead the party obtained the 50%+1 votes necessary to lead the party. Some 170,000 members will have the opportunity to go to the polls again next Sunday, September 24, to choose between Stefanos Kassekalis, who led this Sunday’s vote with 45.4%, and Efi Ajtsioglu, which achieved 36.2%. Participation has been higher than expected, with nearly 140,000 members going to the polls. The polls suggested that the leadership would surely be decided in a second round, but All polls pointed to a clear advantage for Ajtsioglu. However, the first vote reveals a clear advantage for Kasselakis, who is more than nine points ahead of his opponent.
The first round of voting was delayed a week due to Storm Daniel, a major storm that caused flooding in many towns in the center of the country and left 15 dead and hundreds displaced. The change of date to elect a new leader and now the second round of voting adds difficulties to the party in the face of the local elections on October 8, since the new representative of the party will be known two weeks before the elections.
The formation has been without a leader since last June 29, after the charismatic Alexis Tsipras, resigned from his position after being defeated by the conservative New Democracy party (EPP) in the second round of the Greek elections, obtaining only 48 of the 300 seats in Parliament. The election of a new leader is not only important to overcome the disaster of last June, it is also expected that the new leadership will redirect the party’s ideological line. Syriza has long had a great internal division between those who suggest a more leftward turn and those who defend a more modest approach opening towards the center-left.
Stefanos Kasselakis starts with the advantage of having led the first round of voting. Kasselakis presented his candidacy at the end of August, but he has quickly built a base of support with online videos and populist gestures that have especially captivated younger members. Nicknamed “the golden boy,” Kasselakis, 35, has spent much of his youth in the United States, where he worked for Goldman Sachs. The American bank is known in Athens for helping to manipulate its public accounts in the early 2000s, which caused the economic fall of the country. His rivals accuse him of hobnobbing with the capitalist world, but Kasselakis defends himself by saying that thanks to his work experience he has “understood the arrogance” of economic circles. Openly gay, on his show he advocates for the separation of Church and State and the end of military service, among other proposals.
His opponent, Efi Ajtsioglu, 38, is former labor minister (2016-2019), a profile close to Tsipras. “Today is a great day, it is a day of democratic participation, a day of strengthening the progressive faction, a day of renewal of the modern left,” Ajtsioglu declared before the cameras when he went to cast his vote. With a law degree and experience in labor law and in the European Parliament, Ajtsioglu has the support of the most progressive sectors of the party.