Alexis Tsipras’s new body is causing upheavals in Syriza, Nea Aristera and PASOK, which is responding with “transcriptions” and an operation of political survival.
The Central Left now resembles something between a football team transfer season, a talent show of political survival and a reality show of internal party disintegration. With Alexis Tsipras appearing on social media wearing a shirt in the colours of Barcelona and the “26” on the back – as if he were preparing for a Champions League grand final rather than a new party launch – the political scene is taking on increasingly surreal characteristics.
At the same time, PASOK are counting “transcriptions“, Syriza are publicly mocking each other and New Left are looking for who will be the last to turn off the lights. Everyone is talking about a “progressive reboot“, but the picture is more reminiscent of a political apartment building creaking from the foundations.
Tsipras and the… political Champions League
The former prime minister is attempting to present his new venture as a grand political comeback with an air of a “winner”. The Barcelona jersey, the staged posts, the volunteers, the music by Kraounakis and the “big night” at Thiseio show an attempt to set up a political comeback image in terms of a lifestyle campaign. As if it is not a party but a launch event of a new streaming platform. Only that behind the lights and the staging, the basic question remains: is this a real political renewal or a rebranding of the same worn-out political product with more modern packaging?
PASOK counts “transfers” and losses
In Charilaou Trikoupis, they are watching the developments with obvious nervousness. The announcement of 29 new faces in the Enlargement Committee looks more like an operation of immediate political defence against the wave of mobility caused by Tsipras and Karystianou. Former MPs, executives, academics and “returns” are presented as a political counterattack, but the anxiety is now visible: no one knows how long PASOK will last if a new leakage of executives to new ventures in the field begins.
SYRIZA and the New Left in a state of disintegration
While Tsipras is setting the stage for a comeback, SYRIZA is in a state of civil war with public shots, insinuations and open intra-party toxicity. Polakis is throwing “nails”, executives are talking about “political impropriety” and Koumoundourou seems to be living days of political retreat. On the New Left, again, talk of new independence confirms that the party is in danger of turning into a political parenthesis before it even has a clear identity. And just like that, the famous “progressive faction” looks more like an endless casting of new leaders and personal strategies than a serious alternative to governance.
