SYRIZA congress: Oppose manoeuvres to stop “Communist Platform” being presented!

We received today this statement from the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA, which explains that, while prior to the party congress rules had been established allowing alternative documents to be presented on condition they received the backing of a sufficient number of party members (the Communist Tendency managed to get the required signatures), now as the national congress of SYRIZA is unfolding the party leadership is manoeuvring to remove the Communist Platform document from the agenda!

In a truly democratic congress, all documents that are submitted to be voted on in their entirety, in so far as they are in line with the terms of the congress rules, should to be handled in an even-handed manner. At this founding congress of SYRIZA, there are two such documents: the Positions Document [of the leadership] and the Communist Platform, the latter having been signed by 130 members from 61 branches in 22 different towns. Unfortunately, however, just before the official start of congress proceedings, SYRIZA members, in their overwhelming majority, are unaware of this simple yet important fact.

In the pre-congress material that was disseminated via email to SYRIZA members, no clarification was provided as to the character of the Communist Platform as an alternative document to those of the Positions Document. Shortly thereafter, on the day of the publication of the relevant documents in the official SYRIZA newspaper ‘Avgi’, the newspaper arbitrarily listed the Communist Platform as a ‘contribution’ to the debate, and not an official document to be voted on.

Moreover, with the imminent pre-congress deliberations that were to take place at branch level, where the documents were to be presented and discussed in preparation for the congress, branches were being instructed in very clear terms from the party centre that there were going to be only two presentations – one on behalf of the majority leadership (to present the Positions Document) and another on behalf of the Left Platform (to present its four amendments to the leadership’s Positions Document) – with no provision whatsoever for the Communist Platform to be presented.

Notably, in all official announcements of pre-congress deliberations on the SYRIZA and ‘Avgi’ websites there was no mention of a speaker on the part of the Communist Platform even in cases where the Communist Tendency had managed on its own initiative to secure equal exposure. At this precise moment, as this note is being drafted, attempts are intensifying to exclude the Communist Platform from the congress with the announcement of the programme of congress proceedings in which, whilst there is provision for the contributing documents to be presented, there is no provision for the presentation of the only alternative document to the leadership’s Positions Document, that’s is to say, for the presentation of the Communist Platform!

We – the comrades who signed the Communist Platform – express our protest against all these machinations to exclude our voice, and address the Conference Organising Committee with the following legitimate question: After all this, what shall be the standing of the scheduled vote by conference delegates on these two opposing documents? We won’t stand for this blatant violation of democratic rights and of the Congress Regulations! We call upon every member to carefully study the basic conference documents that are to determine the political direction of the party. We particularly call for party members to study and support the Communist Platform as it contains a political programme that, were it to be adopted by SYRIZA and applied by it once in power, would lead to the much desired overthrow of the Memoranda and of capitalism, opening the path towards the socialist transformation of society.

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