For yet another time we are witnessing a complete parody of any due parliamentary process and democratic procedure. The SYRIZA-ANEL government is trying to pass through parliament the new loan agreement, with its Memorandum of Understanding and the legislation that is the prerequisite for the loan agreement.

The loan agreement is even more aggressively neoliberal and in favour of austerity than the previous ones and in this sense SYRIZA wants to implement the very policies (and in some cases even harsher than those) that they have fought against.

The SYRIZA leadership is using all forms of accusations against those from SYRIZA that are opposing the new bail out package. Especially virulent and totally uncomradely are the attacks against the Speaker of the Parliament Zoe Constantopoulou, but also against Panagiotis Lafazanis and the Left Platform.

The surrealistic argument of the SYRIZ A leadership is that the aggreement is ’mild’ and that Grexit is the German plan! Apart from that guilty silence regarding the social consequences of the new aggreement.

In a very hopeful development there has been a common statement from representatives from Left Platform, other tendencies of SYRIZA, tendencies of ANTARSYA (such as ARAN and ARAS) and other groups of the radical Left [1]. It can be the first step towards a new united front of the Left that insists upon the No vote and the need for a break from the eurozone.

However, there is still work to be done. The new Front, the Front of the OXI, cannot simply be a broader version of the Left Platform or the unity of Left Platform + Antarsya. It has to be something that dialectically supesedes them and is a catalyst for the encounter with the social dynamics of the OXI vote, especially its more popular, plebeian and youth segments.

It is a time of decision and choice for the forces of the Left. For the Left Platform it is time to think beyond the limits of intra-SYRIZA factionalism and also to go beyond the rivalries of the SYRIZA Left. For ANTARSYA it is time to think beyond sectarianism and the logic of leftist opposition. For figures like Constapoulou it is time to think in terms of being part of a new front and not simply in terms of personal (and well deserved) popularity.

In sum it is a time of responsibility. There is still a open seismic rift running through Greek society and the challenge is how to represent and transform the dynamics of the OXI vote as the condensation of 5 years of social devastation, political crisis, social movement and protest, to make sure that a window of historical opportunity remains open. History will judge all tendencies of the radical left depending upon their answer to this challenge."

Panagiotis Sotiris