Member of European Parliament Nikos Androulakis won the elections held on Sunday in Greece to become the new leader of the center-left Movement for Change (KINAL).
Andoulakis faced former Prime Minister George Papandreou in the second round of the elections and won by a wide margin. With more than 95 percent of the votes counted, Androulakis gets 68 percent, with Papandreou trailing well behind at 32 percent.
At least 200,000 people voted in the second round of the elections.
“The race for the leadership of the party ended tonight. There are no winners and no losers. The only winner is PASOK and the Democratic Party”, Androulakis underlined after the announcement of the result.
The elections took place after the death from the cancer of Fofi Gennimata in October. She had been president of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) since 2015. Since 2017, she served as the president of KINAL, a coalition of center-left parties formed around PASOK.
In the first round of the elections held last Sunday, Androulakis, won the race gaining 37 percent of the votes. Papandreou came second, on 27 percent. Andreas Loverdos was in third place at 25%. Three more candidates received less than 3,5 percent each.
Greek center-left hopes for a comeback
Irrespective of the final result, political commentators say that the mass participation of over 200,000 citizens in Sunday’s election, may help KINAL develop a new dynamism that could perhaps change the political landscape of Greece which is dominated by conservative New Democracy and leftist SYRIZA.
Born 1979 in Heraklion, Nikos Androulakis studied Civil engineering at the Democritus University of Thrace. He also gave courses in the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education.
Androulakis a life-long member of PASOK
In 2001 Androulakis became a member of the Central Council of PASOK Youth and in 2008 he was appointed member of the National Council of PASOK. On 4 March 2013, he was elected member of the central political committee of PASOK, which on its first session on 14 March 2013 elected him the new political secretary.
In the 2014 European Parliament election, Androulakis was elected one of two MEPs on PASOK’s Elia list. He affiliates with the parliamentary group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
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