Tsipras: Time to end ‘mourning’ over election defeat, calls for new battle ahead of June 25 ballot

SYRIZA leader and former prime minister Alexis Tsipras on Thursday afternoon spoke to members of his leftist party’s central committee, his first address since a resounding election defeat last Sunday, underlining that the “mourning period” is over.

SYRIZA fell short of all forecasts and expectations and only picked up 20.1 percent of the general vote, with the gap between it and first-place New Democracy (ND) party exceeding 20 percentage points.

“I assume the lead, along with all of you, in this battle, because I have never been frightened; I have never cowered nor deserted”, Tsipras said in an address replete with a generous dose of self-criticism.

In attempting to rally his top cadres and voters ahead of the upcoming June 25 election, he said the party’s primary opponent was the “right”, and not socialist PASOK or the Communist Party (KKE).

Tsipras cited three main reasons for SYRIZA’s electoral failure, namely, that ND imposed its own agenda, “an agenda of fear”, as he claimed.

He also said other “progressive” parties refused to prospects of a coalition government, as facilitated by the simple representational system in place for the May 21 ballot.

Finally, he cited “misguided interventions, backsliding and even an inability to understand society,” as reasons for the defeat.

In concluding, he said the stakes for the June 25 election is to prevent a “blank cheque” being given to an “all-powerful and out-of-control ruler”, a reference to incumbent prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.