After terrible months for Syriza, which suffered a painful electoral defeat in the elections held in June, an unexpected candidate has surprised in the first round of the primaries to succeed Alexis Tsipras at the head of the formation of the Greek radical left.
The great favorite was the deputy and former Minister of Labor Efi Ajtsioglu. But against all odds, she was overtaken by an entrepreneur and investor in the maritime sector, Stefanos Kasselakis, only 35 years old and with a past at Goldman Sachs, who has been in the party for just a month. In the first round on Sunday Kasselakis obtained 45% of the nearly 150,000 votes cast, while Ajtsioglu was held back by 36%. Both will contest the position in the second round, which will take place this weekend.
Kasselakis burst onto the Greek political scene at the end of August, with a four-minute video in which he presented himself to Greeks. "My name is Stefanos and I have something to tell you. I was born in Marussi in 1988. In a country of dynasties. In a family with parents who worked for their success", he began. "I am aware that I do not have a match experience. My experience is in work and social life. That is why the candidacy that I am carrying forward shows another path: from society, for society", he continued. The video quickly went viral and was picked up by several media outlets.
His figure has many new elements for the party. Although he spent his childhood in Greece, he left with his family for the USA when he was only fourteen years old. His father was a majority shareholder in a shipping company and was experiencing financial difficulties. He also said that he left out of necessity. Not only because of the financial problems that his family was experiencing, but because he felt trapped in a society as conservative as the Greek one because of his sexual orientation. Kasselakis, who is the first openly gay candidate to aspire to lead a Greek party, is married to a nurse from the United States, who he also features in his introduction video.
Once in the United States, thanks to his brilliant academic resume – he had won a scholarship thanks to having represented Greece in a mathematics competition in the Balkans – he got a scholarship to study at the University of Pennsylvania. While studying, in 2008 he participated as a volunteer in the primaries for the presidential campaign of then Senator Joe Biden. Then, in 2009, in the middle of the Greek financial crisis, he started working as an analyst at Goldman Sachs in London and New York, but left it a few years later because, as he explained, he realized "how much arrogance money brings ". He also worked at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, and later founded his own company in the maritime sector.
But Kasselakis will not have it easy. Since he announced his candidacy, many skeptics have emerged against him within Syriza, and some analysts fear that his victory could lead to another split within the weakened Greek left. He has received all kinds of criticism, from his approach to politics being too superficial to preferring advertising tactics to the collective processes of the parties. There are even those who think that it could be a Trojan horse of the interests of the US and capitalism to prevent this Greek left that managed to sneak in among voters outraged by the debt crisis from returning to power.
"It was a surprise, but a good surprise because since he is young, attractive to the media and an outsider, he has renewed attention to a party that was in a very deep crisis after the electoral defeats", says the professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki, Iorgos Christidis, and recalls the deep crisis that Syriza has been in since Tsipras resigned after getting only 17.8% of the vote, far surpassed by the conservative Kiriakos Mitsotakis, who won the majority absolute with more than 40% of the ballots. "It will be a tight result, but this process is bringing new air to Syriza, which needed it badly", adds the expert.
