Tsipras resigns from SYRIZA helm; new leader to be elected by party members

SYRIZA president and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday announced his resignation from the leftist party’s helm, days after losing another election to center-right New Democracy (ND) party and incumbent Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

In a hastily called address in downtown Athens, Tsipras said “I have … decided to propose the election of a new leadership by party members, as stipulated in its (party) charter: an immediate recourse to relevant procedures, in which, of course, I will not be a candidate. However, I will be present before, during and after them.”

Tsipras spoke before waiting cameras, as his address was carried live by several broadcasters from the Zappeion Hall, a venue used over the decades for major addresses by political leaders. He arrived with this close associates and his companion.

In first prefacing his comments, he said he was emotionally charged on the occasion, with his political cycle closing after his tenure as SYRIZA leader, a post he assumed at the age of 34 in 2009, “of a small leftist party which became the first leftist party that formed a government in Europe.”

In later reports, it emerged that the main opposition party’s parliamentary group will convene next week to elect its new head, a position that may separate from the president of the party.

The same reports pointed to veteran lawmaker and former minister Olga Gerovassili as assuming the post.

SYRIZA will need to have appointed a Parliamentary group head in the coming vote-of-confidence debate in the legislature.

In his first comment over the development, Mitsotakis, speaking from the sidelines of an EU Summit in Brussels, referred to “… an expected decision after three crushing election defeats suffered by SYRIZA, and himself, personally.”