The Renewing Communist Ecological Left (Greek: Ανανεωτική Κομμουνιστική Οικολογική Αριστερά abbreviated AKOA) was a Eurocommunist party in Greece.
Established in 1987 as KKE Interior – Renewing Left (ΚΚΕ εσωτερικού – Ανανεωτική Αριστερά or ΚΚΕσ–ΑΑ), the party resulted from the KKE Interior splitting in two. The party didn't play a major role in electoral politics during the 1990s. This would only change when in 2000, the party aligned with Synaspismos, and in 2004 became one of the founding forces of SYRIZA.
AKOA held the status of an observer in the Party of the European Left until it eventually dissolved into Syriza in 2013.
History
Formation
Logo of KKE Interior – Renewing Left
In May 1986, on its 4th national congress, a majority of KKE Interior decided to reorganize into a broader leftist movement, thereby overruling party secretary Ioannis Banias' resistance to giving up Marxist-Leninist identity. When the majority faction, led by Leonidas Kyrkos, departed and at its April 1987 founding congress reconstituted as the Greek Left, the minority faction around Banias reorganized as KKE Interior – Renewing Left.[1]
Banias' more orthodox wing was supported by KKE Interior's youth organization, the Greek Communist Youth – Rigas Feraios, which continued to play a relevant role in youth and students politics though losing the dominant status it once had. It was also affiliated with the weekly newspaper Epohi.
Unlike the Greek Left, which in the late 1980s strengthened ties with the KKE in becoming the driving force behind the formation of Synaspismos, AKOA largely stayed outside of coalitions. Following disappointing results in the three consecutive legislative elections of 1989 and 1990, the party abstained from further electoral participations during the 1990s.
It was only in the late 1990s that AKOA shortly approached the KKE, which in the meantime had left Synaspismos, to jointly contest the 1998 local elections. The results of the cooperation were however disappointing, leading AKOA to realign again, thereby losing the more hardline Communist Renewal faction that preferred remaining associated with the KKE.
