Internationalist Workers' Left

Leftist opposition SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis put the diaspora at the center of his new year's message on Sunday, while on a holiday visit to the United States.

 SYRIZA- The rise and fall of the cult left-wing party in Europe - Reflections on the right wing

The dominance of ruling New Democracy was confirmed by a new poll, which records a widening gap with socialist PASOK and leftist SYRIZA.

According to the survey by Opinion Poll conducted on behalf of Action24, center-right ND garnered 38.6% and a lead of 23.1 points over PASOK with 15.5%. SYRIZA was in third place with 13.4%, while New Left, which split from SYRIZA, got 2.6%.

It is seen as a foregone conclusion that the government's recent decision to introduce postal votes will boost turnout as Greeks abroad will now be able to cast their ballots without moving from their place of residence.

In the last national elections, Greeks abroad who voted numbered just 17,258.

A statement officially announcing the foundation of New Left has been delivered to Parliamentary Speaker Konstantinos Tassoulas by the head of the new party's parliamentary group, Alexis Charitsis.

The letter, which was signed by 11 MPs who departed from SYRIZA in recent weeks, will be read out on Wednesday in parliament, before the start of the debate on the tax bill.

The new leader of SYRIZA, Stefanos Kasselakis, attacked his critics within the main opposition in a late Thursday interview on Antenna TV, expressing his ambition to "build a large progressive party that spans from the radical Left to the progressive center."

Alexis Tsipras, the former leader of SYRIZA, expressed his concern about the deep divisions within the leftist party following the election of Stefanos Kasselakis in a meeting with him on Wednesday, sources close to the former prime minister said.

Nikos Toskas, a former minister for citizens protection, announced his departure from the main opposition SYRIZA party in a social media post on Wednesday.

Toskas accused the new leadership of deviating the main opposition party from "fundamental principles of the Left and the needs of the people, while aligning with the dictates of the economic oligarchy."

Acrimonious statements and more departures of senior party officials followed the explosive meeting of the central committee of SYRIZA at the weekend, demonstrating that it will be difficult for the main opposition party to escape from the spiral of destructive introversion and further disintegration.

Greece's main opposition party suffered a split Sunday when a left-wing faction announced it was breaking away, accusing the party's recently elected leader of abandoning its core ideology for a sort of "right-wing populism."