Charitsis: SYRIZA must become a vehicle for every democratic-progressive citizen

The future for main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance lies in making changes that will allow the party "to channel our high percentage in the elections, which establishes SYRIZA as the major leftist and progressive force in the country, into a corresponding grounding in society," SYRIZA MP and former minister Alexis Charitsis said in an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) released on Sunday.

"The strength of the Left was and remains its living and unmediated relationship with society, with the daily live of the popular strata and young people, with environmental groups and citizens' movements for rights to the city," Charitsis said.

SYRIZA had to find innovative ways to mobilise the citizens and new organisational structures that enhance creative participation, he noted. At the same time, there had to be a renewal of the party's policy platform, an outline of a growth model with greater detail and a focus on contemporary technological and environmental challenges, highlighting that these were major social and political issues, he added.

The party had to be transformed into "a vehicle for every democratic citizen that wants the country to enter a progressive track," Charitsis told ANA, while stressing that this did not mean a "centre-left mutation" as some were swift to suggest on the basis of "outdated analysis schemas".

The discussion on PASOK voters and SYRIZA members "restricts the area where progressive people can meet, which can been a great deal richer and roomier," he added, noting the need to create a political body that was "more open and democratic, more radical and more effective".

Concerning SYRIZA's stance toward the government, Charitsis spoke of a "dynamic and responsible opposition" and blamed SYRIZA's defeat in the elections on a failure to "reach all the citizens and reverse the distorted picture created by the dominant mass media about the government." At the same time, he said the other side had "resoundingly failed" to inflict a "strategic defeat" on SYRIZA in the July 7 elections, as the party retained a sizeable percentage of the vote.