Fifth candidate joins SYRIZA’s leadership race

SYRIZA MEP Nikolaos Farantouris announced Tuesday he will run for leader of the leftist main opposition party, bringing the number of candidates to five.

He joins ousted leader Stefanos Kasselakis and MPs Sokratis Famellos and Pavlos Polakis, as well as soap opera actor Apostolos Gletsos, who have already started their campaigns. Kasselakis hasn’t officially announced his candidacy and is expected to do so later this week.

“Today, SYRIZA needs to move forward. The great progressive democratic faction has only one way to go: ahead,” he said in the video posted on his social media.

Farantouris, a professor at the University of Piraeus and SYRIZA’s EU policy advisor, was elected to the European Parliament in last June’s elections and had already indicated he was considering entering the race after Kasselakis was voted out earlier in September.

SYRIZA will hold a party congress from November 1-3 ahead of its leadership elections on November 24, with a potential runoff scheduled for December 1.