Greece’s main opposition party cracks up some more

ATHENS — Greece’s main opposition party Syriza continues to dissolve, with another exodus of members, accusing the party leader of “authoritarian behavior.”

Nine lawmakers, including ex-ministers and senior party officials, announced on Thursday they are leaving the party, leaving Syriza with just 36 MPs in the 300-seat parliament, just four more than the third party, the socialist Pasok party.

The radical left-wing Syriza party gained Europe-wide notoriety at the peak of the financial crisis in 2015, winning power on a promise to end and reverse the fiscal austerity imposed by the country’s creditors in exchange for bailout loans. A crushing election defeat in June sparked the resignation of Alexis Tsipras after 15 years as the party leader.

The unlikely election of Miami expat and ex-Goldman Sachs banker Stefanos Kasselakis as Syriza leader in September infuriated a large segment of the party core, which sees him as out of touch with Greece and its left. Kasselakis has also failed to re-energize support for the party, with opinion polls lately showing Syriza falling to third place, sharing the same percentage as the Greek Communist Party (KKE).

“Stefanos Kasselakis was democratically elected, but he is proceeding undemocratically,” the departing MPs along with 48 more party members said in a statement. “He dismantles Syriza and turns it into an amorphous party, while at the same time his political brand emits a jumble of contradictory views without any depth.”

The mass exodus began on November 12, when a left-wing faction within the party (called “Umbrella”), led by former Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, announced it was peeling off, accusing Kasselakis of “Trumpian practices … right-leaning populism, shouting, fanaticism and hatred for the left’s historical trajectory.”

Thursday’s defectors, 11 of them MPs, can now form a new parliamentary group, which is expected to be led by former Economy and Interior Minister Alexis Charitsis, and later on can establish a new political party.

Greece’s left has already fragmented into several small parties, two of them founded by former Syriza officials.

Syriza is now left without most of the officials — called the party’s generation of the 40-year-olds — who served in the most crucial ministerial positions, under Tsipras’ leadership, during the complex debt crisis negotiations with the country’s creditors.

“The only ‘disagreement’ of those who left the party is the result of the internal elections for president and their refusal to accept the democratic verdict of tens of thousands of Syriza members,” Syriza said in a statement. “History will be the judge.”

Syriza Vice President Dimitrios Papadimoulis also announced on Thursday his departure from the party, becoming the third Syriza MEP to quit since Kasselakis was elected. The party is now left with just two MEPs in the European Parliament.