Alexandros "Alekos" Alavanos (; born 22 May 1950) is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

politician, former member of the

Hellenic Parliament The Parliament of the Hellenes (), commonly known as the Hellenic Parliament (), is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Greece, located in the Old Royal Palace, overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens. The parliament is the supreme demo ...

and the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

. From 2004 until 2008 he was president of the Coalition of the Left of Movements and Ecology, commonly known as ''Synaspismos''. He was parliamentary leader of the wider

Coalition of the Radical Left The Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance (), best known by the syllabic abbreviation SYRIZA ( ; ; a pun on the Greek adverb , meaning "from the roots" or "radically"), is a centre-left to left-wing political party in Greece. ...

(SYRIZA).

Biography

Early life

Born on 22 May 1950 in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, Alavanos has been politically active since his youth. During the

Greek military junta of 1967–1974 The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a right-wing military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels with CIA backing overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections wh ...

, Alavanos participated in the student movement against the regime; as a result his military service deferment was revoked and he was briefly

incarcerated Imprisonment or incarceration is the restraint of a person's liberty for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is considered "false imprisonment". Impris ...

in the EAT/ESA military prison.

Political career

He was elected to the

in 1981 with the

Communist Party of Greece The Communist Party of Greece (, ΚΚΕ; ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece. It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (SEKE) and adopted its current name in Novem ...

and again in 1989, 1994 and 1999 with Synaspismos. In the

2004 Greek legislative election Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 7 March 2004.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p830 The New Democracy Party of Kostas Karamanlis won the elections, ending eleven years of rule by PASO ...

, Alavanos was elected MP in Athens. Since Nikos Konstantopoulos, his predecessor in Synaspismos' leadership, announced his intention not to be a candidate for another term, Alavanos announced his own candidacy for the office. The party congress elected him president on 12 December 2004. In the

2007 Greek legislative election Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 16 September 2007 to elect the 300 members of the Hellenic Parliament. The leading party for a second term was New Democracy under the leadership of Kostas Karamanlis with 42%, followed by G ...

, running as leader of SYRIZA, which more than doubled its parliamentary seats, he was narrowly elected an MP in Heraklion, Crete. On 27 November 2007, Alavanos announced that he would not apply for a renewal of his presidency of Synaspismos at its 5th party congress in February 2008, due to private reasons.Synaspismos press release
/ref> He was replaced by

Alexis Tsipras Alexis Tsipras (, ; born 28 July 1974) is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2015 to 2019. A left-wing figure, Tsipras was leader of the List of political parties in Greece, Greek political party Syriza from 200 ...

. In February 2011 he left

Synaspismos The Coalition of the Left, of Movements and Ecology (, ''Synaspismós tīs Aristerás tōn Kinīmátōn kai tīs Oikologías''), commonly known as Synaspismos (, ''Synaspismós'', "Coalition") and abbreviated to SYN (ΣΥΝ), was a Greek politica ...

and founded the Front of Solidarity and Overthrow with other former members of

. Communist Organization of Greece, Internationalist Workers' Left,

Movement for the Unity of Action of the Left Movement for the Unity of Action of the Left (, ΚΕΔΑ; KEDA) was a political party in Greece that was part of the Coalition of the Radical Left. History KEDA was formed in the early 2000s, by a splinter group of major party officials of the Co ...

and Anticapitalist Political Group joined the front, but they left it in 2012 due to political disputes. He again founded a new political party in 2013, founding Plan B specifically to contest the

2014 European Parliament election in Greece European Parliament elections were held in Greece on 25 May 2014 to elect the 21 Greek members of the European Parliament. The number of seats allocated to Greece declined from 22 to 21, as a result of the 2013 reapportionment of seats in the ...

. The party's platform is centered on exiting Greece from the eurozone.

Personal life

Alekos Alavanos is an

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

. He is married to Aikaterini Charalambaki and is the father of two daughters.

Notes

External links