Editorial: Banners

It was demonstrated once again that Alexis Tsipras’ call for a centre-left front has fallen on deaf ears.

The PM’s “issuance of a broad invitation” fell by the wayside and came across as ungrounded.

What is impeding the PM’s plan is the stance of centre-left Movement for Change leader Fofi Gennimata and of To Potami leader Stavros Theodorakis, who refuse to play his game.

This was to be expected. Gennimata was perfectly clear when she declared that she is not about to hand over Andreas Papandreou’s party to SYRIZA.

Theodorakis would not risk his political credibility to join the court of SYRIZA, as politicians of the populist and national right and second-rank politicians of the centre-left did.

The failure of Mr. Tsipras’ project was preordained for yet another reason. As was demonstrated by the mass participation in the election of delegates to the party convention of the Movement for Change and by the Italian Democratic Party’s leadership election, the centre-left in Europe has endured.

That is because it is backed by citizens who are not represented by conservative or populist forces, whatever banner those forces may raise in their effort to pillage the centre-left.