Gabriel Sakellaridis ( gr, Γαβριήλ Σακελλαρίδης; born 20 August 1980) is a Greek economist and politician of

Syriza The Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance ( el, Συνασπισμός Ριζοσπαστικής Αριστεράς – Προοδευτική Συμμαχία, Synaspismós Rizospastikís Aristerás – Proodeftikí Simachía), ...

. From January 2015 to July 2015 he served as the Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson in the Cabinet of Alexis Tsipras. Since September 2017, he is the Greece country Director of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

Political career

At the 2014 local elections, he ran for the post of the

mayor of Athens The Mayor of Athens is the head of the Municipality of Athens, the largest district of Athens. Kingdom of Greece (1832–1924) Second Hellenic Republic (1924–1935) Kingdom of Greece (1935–1941) Hellenic State (1941–1944) Kingdom ...

. In his campaign he advocated for an open city with less police but more quality of life. Finishing second, he reached the second round of the election, but then lost to incumbent Giorgos Kaminis. On his third attempt, Sakellaridis, placed on second position in the Athens A constituency, won a seat in the January 2015 legislative elections. He had before contested the consecutive

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...

and June elections from unpromising positions in the

Athens B Athens B (Athens Beta; el, Β΄ Αθηνών) was a parliamentary constituency in Attica represented in the Hellenic Parliament. It covered a large part of urban area of Athens outside the Municipality of Athens, which forms the Athens A constit ...

constituency. Following the government takeover by Syriza, he was appointed a Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and Government Spokesperson. In a government reshuffle on 17 July 2015, he switched his post with Olga Gerovasili who became government speaker, leaving him the post of a parliamentary spokesperson. Reelected in the subsequent September 2015 snap election, Sakellaridis however wasn't reappointed to Tsipras' second cabinet. On 19 November 2015, Sakellaridis, who was a member of Syriza's moderately leftist "53+" faction, resigned from his parliamentary seat because he could no longer support the bailout and therefore couldn't "contribute to the implementation of government policies." Sakellaridis thereby announced his complete withdrawal from the main political scene. In September 2017 he was appointed as director of the Greek section of

References

External links

*
Website
of Sakellaridis' 2014 Athens campaign * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sakellaridis, Gabriel 1980 births Living people Politicians from Athens Athens University of Economics and Business alumni The New School alumni Syriza politicians Greek MPs 2015 (February–August) Greek MPs 2015–2019