“I aspire to be the next prime minister for all Greeks,” says Kasselakis

“I aspire to be the next prime minister of the country for all Greeks – domestically and internationally – but my faith is above all in the people who embraced me and propelled me,” Stefanos Kasselakis, the leader of main opposition, left-wing SYRIZA said speaking at the 27th Annual Economist Government Round-table in Athens on Thursday

Speaking about his own trajectory, he said that “two months after Alexis decided to leave, I announced my candidacy to succeed him” he said.

He added “I was not a party member, nor did I fit the profile of the traditional Left – [coming] from employment at Goldman Sachs, and being a former businessman and shipping executive.”

“But elected I was,” he noted about the SYRIZa members voting for him to be the new party leader, “by a wide margin, as an ‘underdog’ in the [leadership] race, one which won in working-class neighborhoods and rural areas alike.”

And this, he noted, “is the most characteristic part of my position today: that those who remained outside the so-called system, saw in me a modern fighter, not only for their own interests, but for the collective future of the country.”

Kasselakis underlined that he will be on the side of the people “struggling to pay their electricity bills, who yearn for their children to return to Greece, who are buried in piles of mud after the recent floods and with negligible state support.”

I was elected, by a wide margin, as an outsider in the primary race, who won the working-class neighborhoods and the rural areas.

And that is the most telling part of my position today – that those left out of the so-called system, saw in me a modern fighter for not just their… pic.twitter.com/ly4FZaSXfb

— Stefanos Kasselakis – Στέφανος Κασσελάκης (@skasselakis) October 27, 2023