Outgoing Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras leaves his party’s headquarters in Athens, Greece, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Veteran Greek leftist Panagiotis Lafazanis parted ways with his old comrade Alexis Tsipras yesterday, founding a new party dedicated to finishing off the country’s bailout before the bailout finishes off the country. Lafazanis has led a group of dissident lawmakers in splitting from the outgoing prime minister’s Syriza Party to contest a snap election which is expected next month.

With a founding membership of 25 lawmakers, the Popular Unity party immediately becomes the third biggest force in Parliament behind the dominant Syriza and conservative opposition New Democracy.

Lafazanis, a 63-year-old mathematician who cut his political teeth in the struggle to oust Greece’s military rulers four decades ago, said Popular Unity aimed to restore wages and pensions cut during five years of austerity policies demanded by Greece’s foreign creditors. It would also reject new taxes and support nationalising the banks, producing a strong investment plan and redistributing wealth in the country.

On top of all that, Greece’s huge debt burden has to be eased. “The country cannot breathe and stand on its feet unless a big part of the debt is cancelled,” he told a news conference to launch the party. Tsipras resigned on Thursday after the Syriza rebels refused to back the new bailout programme, forcing him to rely on the opposition to get the legislation through Parliament last week. Faced with a national financial collapse, Tsipras had to agree to impose a new wave of austerity and reform policies to secure the €86 billion in bailout loans, soon after Greeks had overwhelmingly rejected a previous offer from the eurozone and IMF in a referendum.

So far, the 25 lawmakers are dwarfed by Syriza’s parliamentary group, which numbered 149 in the 300 seat chamber before the split. “We will continue to express the spirit and substance of the 62 per cent who voted ‘no’ to bailouts and a big ‘yes’ to an independent, sovereign, progressive and just Greece,” he said.

We will either finish off the bailouts or the bailouts will finish off Greece

“The country cannot take more bailouts. We will either finish off the bailouts, or the bailouts will finish off Greece and the Greek people,” said Lafazanis. Lafazanis was never one of Tsipras’s closest colleagues. However, he got the energy portfolio as the prime minister tried to balance the various factions after Syriza’s dominant election victory in January - a job he held until his dismissal last month for rebelling.

While Lafazanis is more than 20 years older than Tsipras, they have had similar careers in left-wing politics. Both emerged from the Communist Party to join Synaspismos – Lafazanis was a founding member – a party which eventually merged into Syriza, a coalition of the radical left. Lafazanis was first elected to Parliament in 2000, but his activism goes back to the student struggle against the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 till its overthrow and the restoration of democracy in 1974.

Lafazanis described the new party as the “last consistently antibailout voice”. In fact it shares this distinction with the Communist KKE party and Golden Dawn, an ultra-right group.