The choice of Alexis Tsipras to use the term “Left of the Centre” instead of “Centre-Left” is not accidental.
It represents a conscious ideological and tactical choicethat suggests the intention for a “new progressive alliance” that will not be identified with the Center but will have a leftist orientation to the exclusion of the term Center Left, which has historically been identified with social democracy.
The electrical differentiation he believes allows him to appeal to the PASOK voters without causing “allergic” reactions to the Syriazas base and the radical left in general.
In essence, the “Left of the Centre” conceptually is empty of content – it is a communication manoeuvre rather than an ideological shift – so that politically it refers to the “governmental” Syriza.
The Tsipras Institute’s strategy, at least as reflected in the Manifesto, focuses on the convergence of the Left, ecology and the “Corbinist” version of social democracy as implemented by Pedro Sánchez in Spain.
Hence the “nervousness” in Charilaou Trikoupis, as Nikos Androulakis is under pressure to prove that PASOK remains the dominant pole, while Alexis Tsipras attempts to “swallow” the centre-left from the “Left of the Centre” at the same time.
The months between now and the elections will show whether “Left of Centre” will assimilate the centre-left.
