Greece’s Alexis Tsipras Faces Battle to Avoid Syriza Split

Ruling party’s central committee to decide whether to hold inner-party referendum

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI and  VIKTORIA DENDRINOU

Updated July 29, 2015 12:57 p.m. ET

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ATHENS—Greece’s ruling Syriza party is sliding toward a split as far-left dissidents resist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s acquiescence to creditors’ demands, endangering his fragile government and complicating the country’s bailout negotiations.

Syriza’s central committee—the body that sets the party’s policies—is scheduled to meet on Thursday to decide how to handle a rift that erupted in mid-July, when a quarter of the party’s lawmakers voted against austerity measures that were a prerequisite for the country’s prospective new bailout program from the eurozone and International Monetary Fund, valued at as much as €86 billion ($95 billion).

The central committee is due to decide whether Syriza will hold an emergency congress in September or carry out an inner-party referendum to decide on the party’s future. If the committee decides to hold a referendum, it could take place this weekend.

Despite his consistently high popularity with the Greek public, Mr. Tsipras faces a difficult battle inside his own party.

After a tentative deal on July 12 between eurozone leaders, more than half of the Syriza central committee’s members signed a statement denouncing the agreement and calling it a coup against Greece.

Mr. Tsipras and his top aides have said the government aims to complete a bailout deal as quickly as possible, before dealing with Syriza’s internal rebels at a party congress in the fall, which could lead to the party splitting, with national elections following soon afterward.

“Syriza’s problems are not going to become the country’s problems,” Mr. Tsipras said in an interview on Wednesday on local radio.

Mr. Tsipras said he expects all party members to support the government’s efforts until after the deal is sealed and the country has escaped the danger of bankruptcy before setting in motion any inner-party changes.

But the risk of an immediate party split could threaten the negotiations between Athens and its creditors and pose a risk to financial stability. Greece faces another looming debt deadline on Aug. 20, when it must repay some €3.2 billion in bonds held by the European Central Bank.

The main bloc of dissidents stems from the Left Platform, a faction within Syriza that is calling for Greece to leave the euro.

In a recent cabinet shuffle, Mr. Tsipras removed ministers representing that group in an effort to assemble a team that would help implement the tough economic overhauls demanded by creditors.

Members of the Left Platform have called on the government to “immediately stop the negotiations, which are leading to a third bailout” and look for an “alternative solution to the creditors’ blackmail.”

“We must admit that Syriza never became a unified party,” Mr. Tsipras said during Wednesday’s radio interview. “The effort to move from a party of many factions to a unified one didn’t bring the desired results.”

While not expressly demanding the resignation of lawmakers who didn’t support the government’s position, Mr. Tsipras said according to party rules they should have stepped down.

“You cannot vote against the government’s proposals and say you support the government; this is surrealism,” Mr. Tsipras said.

Write to Nektaria Stamouli at nektaria.stamouli@wsj.com and Viktoria Dendrinou at viktoria.dendrinou@wsj.com