Syriza’s central committee will have a meeting Thursday to decide whether to hold an emergency congress in September to overhaul the party or hold a referendum on the way forward.
The second meeting Tuesday of the party's political secretariat in two days resulted in a decision to call a gathering of the policy-setting central committee.
Several Syriza officials belonging to the party’s radical left wing called for the government to break off negotiations with EU/IMF creditors and return to its anti-bailout roots.
As major Greek daily Kathimerini reports: Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras spoke at Monday’s meeting of the political secretariat and insisted that the government has no other viable option than to agree a new bailout with the institutions. He proposed holding an emergency SYRIZA congress, probably in September, to allow party members to debate the issue.
However, the party’s Left Platform, a far-left fraction witihn Syriza led by ex-Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis is pushing for the congress to be held now, before a third bailout has been agreed.
Lafazanis says the government should carry out its anti-austerity mandate, and respect the result of a July 5 referendum in which Greeks overwhelmingly rejected creditor demands for more cuts.
A day earlier, Lafazanis pledged in a defiant public speech that those who voted "No" to the bailout in a referendum this month would not be forgotten.