{"id":12717,"date":"2026-06-25T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=12717"},"modified":"2026-06-25T08:20:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T05:20:00","slug":"old-sins-arent-erased-by-new-political-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=12717","title":{"rendered":"Old sins aren&#8217;t erased by new political parties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Officials from ELAS who appear in the media are trying to project the image of a new venture. So far, so good. <\/p>\n<p>Except that they forget\u2014or don\u2019t want to be reminded\u2014that their president is <b>Alexis Tsipras<\/b>, former prime minister, president of SYRIZA until the 2023 elections and the two electoral defeats, and subsequently a SYRIZA member of parliament until October 2025.<\/p>\n<p>And this is happening despite the fact that <b>he himself cites his tenure to demonstrate that he has experience as prime minister<\/b>, even stating that back then he knew what he wanted, but didn\u2019t know how to do it, whereas now he knows both what he wants and how to do it\u2014thereby, of course, undermining everything he said before the elections of 2015 regarding their plan and ability to govern the country.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s get back to what\u2019s happening today with the Hellenic Police (ELAS) officials who represent the new party with the\u2026 old, as it seems, tax ID number in terms of mindset. <\/p>\n<p>We heard a party spokesperson state on a TV panel that <b>\u201cif you ask me about 2015\u20132019, I\u2019ll ask about 2009 and the empty coffers left by New Democracy,\u201d <\/b>attempting to pass the buck.<\/p>\n<p>The trigger was the question of how the Hellenic Police (ELAS) could raise the issue of whether former commissioner and current MP Dimitris Avramopoulos in New Democracy and whether he will be on the party\u2019s ticket for the upcoming elections, once again raising the issue of MPs facing criminal charges and all these baseless attacks targeting political opponents\u2014and, above all, <b>without any convictions against them.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>What sparked the reaction was the observation that Alexis Tsipras, as president of SYRIZA, included on the party\u2019s candidate lists prior to the 2023 elections <b>Nikos Pappas<\/b> on the party\u2019s candidate lists ahead of the 2023 elections, even though he had already been unanimously (13-0) and irrevocably convicted by the Special Court. That\u2019s where the story from 2009 began, but <b>it was said that ELAS is a different party and that the party\u2019s president has acknowledged past mistakes.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>But what mistakes? Because it would be difficult to find anyone to argue that mistakes have been acknowledged beyond those concerning the selection of associates, <b>on whom he also shifted the blame for the past<\/b>, but also <b>what he himself acknowledged regarding the banks, saying it was a mistake not to have shut them down as soon as he took over the country\u2019s governance.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The bottom line is that through this discussion regarding the allegedly indicted members of parliament and the word games being played\u2014even within the Hellenic Police\u2014a clear attempt to erase the past has emerged. <b>A sort of\u2026 purification through the creation of a new party.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>One could easily argue that before <b>Ithaca<\/b>, some wish that the country had first been ruled by the <b>lotophagi<\/b> for the citizens of this country. But whether you like it or not, there are facts on the ground. Perhaps not for some newcomers, but certainly for those who governed, made decisions, and served in the opposition for many years.<\/p>\n<p>To wrap it up. <b>ELAS is a new party, having just been founded. Its founder, however, is a veteran, having served as president of another party for 15 years and as prime minister for 4.5 years.<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><b>* This article was published in the print edition of \u201cManifesto\u201d<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hellenic Police officials appearing in the media are trying to paint a picture of a new initiative. So far, so good. Except that they forget\u2014or perhaps don\u2019t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}