A leadership election was held on 12 November and 19 November 2017 by the

centre-left Centre-left politics is the range of left-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. Ideologies commonly associated with it include social democracy, social liberalism, progressivism, and green politics. Ideas commo ...

political parties of Greece, with the participation of

Panhellenic Socialist Movement The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (, ), known mostly by its acronym PASOK (; , ), is a social-democratic political party in Greece. Until 2012 it was one of the two major parties in the country, along with New Democracy, its main political r ...

(PASOK), Greece's main centre-left party and The River (Potami), another parliamentary party. The Movement of Democratic Socialists (KIDISO) and the Union of Democratic National Reform movement (EDEM) also supported the elections. The first round of election was held on 12 November. No candidate gained 50% of the votes, so a runoff vote was held on 19 November. The elections were regulated by an election committee under the presidency of Nikos Alivizatos. More than 210,000 Greek citizens voted in the first round of elections. Mass media describes the elections as important in the current political situation, and as step for the formation of a new unified party of the centre-left.

Candidates

Nine candidates took part in the elections. In addition to

Fofi Gennimata Fotini "Fofi" Gennimata ( ; 17 November 1964 – 25 October 2021) was a Greek politician who served as president of the PASOK, Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) from 2015 to 2021. During her tenure as party leader, she also co-founded and l ...

, incumbent leader of PASOK and Potami founder

Stavros Theodorakis Stavros Theodorakis ( ; born 1963) is a Greece, Greek journalist and politician, who founded and led the Social liberalism, social liberal party The River (Greece), ''To Potami'' (''The River''). In the January 2015 Greek legislative election, Ja ...

, the candidates were PASOK MEP

Nikos Androulakis Nikos Androulakis (; born 7 February 1979) is a Greek politician who serves as president of the PASOK – Movement for Change since 2021. He served also as Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2023. He was elected as member of the Hell ...

, Athens Mayor

Giorgos Kaminis Georgios Kaminis (; born 15 July 1954) is a Greek American politician and professor of constitutional law. He was the Greek Ombudsman from April 2003 until September 2010 and Mayor of Athens from 2011 until 2019. Early life Giorgos Kaminis was ...

, former PASOK ministers Yiannis Maniatis and Yiannis Ragousis, the leader of the EDEM, Apostolos Pontas, the former dean of the Athens University of Economics and Business, Constantinos Gatsios, and Dimitris Tziotis. Each candidate submitted the 1,000 signatures required for their candidacy to be confirmed. Odysseas Konstantinopoulos also nominated himself but later retired due to health issues.

Debates

Two televised debates were held for the leadership candidates: The first on 30 October 2017, and the second on 6 November. Both were broadcast live by the national network of the public

ERT2 ERT2 (, "ERT Dyo") is a Greek free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (). It is the corporation's second television channel and it broadcasts documentaries, talkshows, ...

Results

First round

Temportary results showed

, leader of PASOK to be ahead with 45% of the votes while Androulakis received 24%. On 175,565 votes out of 210,264 total, F. Gennimata received 42.5% while N. Androulakis 25.14%, G. Kaminis 13.52%, S. Theorodakis 9.81%, G. Maniatis 4.26%, G. Ragkousis 2.29%, C. Gatsios 1.65%, A. Pontas 0.53%, D. Tsiotis 0.20%. The candidates reaching the second-round election were Gennimata, with 44.5% of the vote, and Androulakis, with 25.4%.

Run-off

The run-off on 19 November was won by Gennimata, who garnered 56% of the vote.

Summary

References

{{Reflist 2017 in Greece 2017 in Greek politics Political party leadership elections in Greece PASOK Greek centre-left leadership election