SYRIZA‘s Central Committee decided during a meeting late on Thursday night to hold a party congress in September, a suggestion also made earlier by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during his opening remarks.
“We were forced to make difficult decisions,” Tsipras said on Thursday addressing the Central Committee. “We had to choose between a painful compromise and a disorderly default,” he added, explaining his decision to agree to a third program or harsh austerity measures that has splintered SYRIZA’s ranks and split its parliamentary group.
The Prime Minister also stressed that the division within the parliamentary group must end, saying that the government cannot continue to exploit the votes of the opposition to sustain an “irrational dualism” within its ranks.
“The first government of the Left in Europe after the second world war is either supported by leftist MPs or it is not supported because it has stopped being Left and falls,” Tsipras said.
Tsipras proposed either an extraordinary party congress in September, once the agreement with Greece’s creditors had been signed, or else a referendum, open to SYRIZA members, on Sunday that would allow the party’s grass roots base to decide.
(source: ana-mpa)
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