Syriza

SYRIZA MP and former minister Olga Gerovasili has announced her candidacy for the leadership of the party, challenging leader Stefanos Kasselakis.

"To the president's challenge, I reply: present. As a candidate for the leadership of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance," Gerovasili said Saturday evening at the party congress.

The bomb dropped by former prime minister and SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras as the leftist party's congress was about to start is a high-risk gamble both for his own political future and that of his successor, Stefanos Kasselakis. Following the latest developments, another SYRIZA split might be imminent.

This past week protests and politics took center stage in Greece, as farmers - like many of their European counterparts - descended on Athens with their tractors to demand that the government do more to improve their working and living conditions.

Stefanos Kasselakis has said that he will lead SYRIZA in the national elections and that he will become prime minister.

"I will also lead the party in the national elections; I was not only elected for the European elections," Kasselakis said, in an interview with the daily Ta Nea newspaper.

He added that only the grassroots of his party can "expel" him.

After the withdrawal of Dionysis Temponeras, SYRIZA's leadership battle is likely to end up being a race for two after Olga Gerovasili's candidature with the behind-the-scenes support of former leader Alexis Tsipras, against the incumbent Stefanos Kasselakis.

Alexis Tsipras' dynamic intervention on Thursday, a few hours before the start of SYRIZA's congress, raises many questions - some of which most likely began to be answered later in the evening.

The SYRIZA leader has so far not submitted a statement of economic activity - The online platform has not been opened, but in any case a political leader is prohibited from having a company abroad

The president of SYRIZA announced that he will be immediately informed by his lawyers if the law concerns him, as he is not a member of parliament - "I will never "sell" the world of Syriza, at any personal financial cost," he replies to the publication of news247

SYRIZA MP and member of the political secretariat, the top executive of the leftist opposition, Costas Zachariadis, has criticized the stance of party chief Stefanos Kasselakis, as expressed on the opening day of the party's congress, as divisive, while pointing to Olga Gerovasili as a potential challenger to his leadership.

Main opposition SYRIZA is entering a new leadership race in the wake of developments triggered by an intervention of its former leader Alexis Tsipras suggesting the incumbent Stefanos Kasselakis must renew his mandate with the party base.