Alexandros Gramsci’s well-known phrase, “the old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born,” fits well when describing the political and electoral weakness of the Center-Left, in a moment marked by political fluidity and a power vacuum.
In the Greek party system, the concept of the Center-Left has developed in two distinct periods. In the 1960s, it emerged as a social alliance between the population rooted in the National Liberation Front (EAM), which had fought against the Nazis, and new rural strata that had moved into urban centers.
The mobilizations aimed at overcoming the postwar political order, including the “Anendotos” struggle and the events of July 1965, led to the radicalization of the Center Union and the creation of a left wing under Andreas Papandreou. The second period began in the 1990s, when PASOK shifted toward the “Center of the political spectrum” to justify, in electoral terms, its ideological and organizational turn, adopting “modernizing” neoliberalism and abandoning the mass-party organizational structure.
At present, we are witnessing the birth pangs of the Center-Left parties, stemming from their inability to fill the gap in political representation, since they suffer from organizational, ideological, and strategic deficits. PASOK remains politically trapped in its “fixation” on vindicating the neoliberal policies of the bailout era and in preserving the organizational model of the “open party.” Its refusal to cooperate with Alexis Tsipras works against it compared to the 2023 elections, since it now presents PASOK as a center-right party, closer to New Democracy, and opposed to the prospect of a change in government, an issue that matters to part of the electorate.
ELAS (the Hellenic Left Alliance) relies on the personality of Alexis Tsipras, who, as former prime minister, stands out as the main counterweight to Kyriakos Mitsotakis. However, its lack of a mass organizational structure, combined with a clear ideological shift away from SYRIZA toward a purely managerial logic, limits its political and electoral momentum.
Plefsi Eleftherias, despite expressing SYRIZA’s anti-bailout politics and the demands of the Tempi movement, does not appear able to turn its momentum into a genuine bid for power, given its personality-driven character. The absence of a mass-party organizational structure also prevents it from effectively politicizing and representing the movement it draws on. The KKE, on the other hand, has a mass-party organizational structure and a radical ideology. However, its strategy since the 2012 elections of not seeking government places it more in the role of a pressure group, resembling a labor union such as PAME, or a cultural association organizing concerts and tributes, rather than a party pursuing power on Leninist terms, the way PASOK’s “Edo kai Tora” (“Here and Now”) did in 1981.
These developments appear to confirm Gramsci’s dictum about the old that has already died, organizationally, ideologically, and strategically. And since the new has not yet been born, what dominates is the “age of monsters,” marked by the state’s drift toward a more authoritarian character, the rise of the far right, and the delegitimization of core liberal democratic institutions such as parties, unions, and government.
The Center-Left parties need to understand that democracy is not simply an emphasis on a leader or a mere rotation in government. What is required instead is organization capable of expressing the new division of labor, building and politicizing a new social alliance, and offering an alternative plan centered on collective action. Forming a social majority with political characteristics is the decisive factor for becoming a hegemonic proposal capable of shifting the balance of power within the state. This is where the real stakes lie. As George Seferis writes in “Denial,” we took our life, wrongly, and changed it.
Chrysanthos D. Tassis is an associate professor of Political Sociology and the Greek Political System at the Department of Social Policy of the Democritus University of Thrace, and a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, USA.
