The former prime minister’s “jibes” at the leadership team of SYRIZA leadership team, which wants to join ELAS.

No matter how well the… advertising campaign for the political rebranding and left-wing reunion Tsipras, much remains to be done to avoid the risk of a fiasco.

First and foremost, the party must establish its identity and create the sense—or the convincing illusion—that it is taking root in the Center-Left and then go to the polls as Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s main political rival.

The “Tzokonta” with her enigmatic smile is good, and the enthusiastic “recruitment” of the popular Theopoula is also good, but the key component of a political party is its people. The members and officials who will communicate the political party’s positions and proposals.

And there, the reality doesn’t quite match the dazzling smile of the Greek Left Alliance’s communications campaign. They are desperately seeking willing “lotophagi” and… public statements.

The former prime minister is struggling to find officials for his party. With the creation of ELAS and the dissolution of SYRIZA and the New Left, Tsipras has completed a full circle, betting on the possibility that centrifugal forces will contribute to his political rise.

By resigning from the leadership of SYRIZA, he took responsibility for the electoral defeat in 2023, but at the same time began preparing his comeback with a new party of his own, attempting to convey to the public that his comrades—and not he himself—were to blame for the problems within SYRIZA and the poor election results. Three years later, in a party with a new name and a different communication strategy—but with nearly 90% of its leadership coming from SYRIZA—he is once again the president.

With the release and presentation of “Ithaca” , Tsipras attempted to “sort through” SYRIZA and the New Left for his party and to put his criteria regarding the failed—worn-out, indifferent—neutral, and socially and politically active—who are nevertheless fully prepared to become mere figureheads.

That is, to become those leftists and political prisoners held hostage by old, outdated, and discredited parties—who would willingly sign a declaration of repentance and renunciation of… old leftist ideology in order to be “released” from the traditional parties, avoid being exiled to inactivity, and remain active in social and political life.

Apparently, Tsipras, in studying history, has spent considerable time on the chapter covering the interwar period, the Metaxas dictatorship, the Occupation, and the Civil War—periods in which the “declaration of loyalty” had a profound impact. And it was not just repression, but also the moral and ideological annihilation of leftists and communists, since signing the declaration—which was even published— meant renouncing their ideas and their comrades.

At the time, it was a form of public shaming used by… uncompromising leftists targeting their former comrades as traitors, deserters, and informants, and, ultimately, leading to social isolation. It seems that the leftist Tsipras is also adopting some of this practice in his new political venture.

He cut ties with Konstantopoulou, Varoufakis, Lafazanis, and those around them early on. Key figures from the “first-time Left” abandoned Tsipras’s SYRIZA after the U-turn on the referendum, and have been lambasting him ever since.

Of the others who marched alongside him during the years of coalition government and official opposition and now want to follow him to ELAS, Tsipras is demanding a kind of declaration of repentance.

They must resign from their seats and await his decisions regarding their future. The man who—for some, at least—was responsible for the electoral defeats of 2019 and 2023, and for the… schemes to dismantle SYRIZA, is closing the door and setting tough conditions.

And as it appears, the only people who will definitely not be welcome in Tsipras’s new party are Pavlos Polakis, Nikos Pappas, and most likely Rena Dourou.

What about the old… party nomenklatura of SYN and later SYRIZA—Yiannis Dragasakis and Euclid Tsakalotos? If they seek to do so, would a statement of repentance “cover” it?

The only party structure that can logically support the… backbone of ELAS is the… battered and deeply divided SYRIZA and its temporary party offshoot, NEAR.

“Tough” demands…

For Efi Achtsioglou, who left NEAR and resigned as a member of parliament, many believe that the path to Amalia will be smoother. On the other hand, some others claim that Tsipras has already signaled to her about an impending candidacy. “Pella or nothing.”

To Alexis Harits, the Southern Sector of Attica is being “suggested” rather than the electoral safety net of Messinia. As for Nassos Iliopoulos, the choice is to fight in the challenging electoral district of Western Attica rather than in Athens A, as a continuation of his political involvement with the City of Athens.

These… statements were useful to Alexis Tsipras during the coalition government period as well. When, in a show of defiance toward the creditors, he declared from Crete that the SYRIZA-ANEL government would do whatever it wanted with the accounting “surpluses” resulting from excess tax revenue, he undertook the obligation to submit, through the Minister of Finance, Euclid Tsakalotos, …a binding statement to the Eurogroup in which it would commit—among other things– that the allowance given to retirees to offset the cut in the EKAS supplement is a one-time payment and that the freeze on the VAT increase on the islands would apply only for 2017. In other words, he had Tsakalotos make a “statement” on his behalf.