Konstantinos Zervas (; born 10 May 1964) is a Greek

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

and politician who served as Mayor of Thessaloniki from 2019 to 2023 being defeated in the 2023 Thessaloniki municipal election.

Biography

Early life

Konstantinos Zervas was born in Thessaloniki in 1964. He is the son of Vasilis Zervas—a civil engineer—and Lilika Zerva-Ologa—a philologist. He has two older sisters. His maternal great grandmother was born in

Korçë Korçë (; sq-definite, Korça) is the List of cities and towns in Albania, eighth most populous city of Albania and the seat of Korçë County and Korçë Municipality. The total population of the city is 51,152 and 75,994 of Korçë municipal ...

, she moved to

Skopje Skopje ( , ; ; , sq-definite, Shkupi) is the capital and largest city of North Macedonia. It lies in the northern part of the country, in the Skopje Basin, Skopje Valley along the Vardar River, and is the political, economic, and cultura ...

where she met his great grandfather and that is where his grandfather was born also. Zervas attended the German School of Thessaloniki and the Experimental School of Thessaloniki. He graduated from the Department of Civil Engineering of the

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ( AUTh; ), often called the University of Thessaloniki, is the second oldest tertiary education institution in Greece. Named after the philosopher Aristotle, who was born in Stageira, about east of Thessa ...

and received a Masters of Science from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

in 1989.

Political career

He was a member of the board of directors of Attiko Metro SA between 2010 and 2016. In 2011 Zervas became the City Councilor and Deputy mayor for the environment, quality of life and Free Space. In the calendar year of 2014 he got re-elected but instead got the position as a Citizen's Mobility, Youth and Sport deputy. Zervas exited his position in 2015 due to disagreements in major policies. In 2019 Zervas was elected mayor of Thessaloniki. He received 66.82% of the votes, while his opponent Nikos Tahiaos received 33.18% of the votes. In 2019 he authored a book called "Thoughts for Thessaloniki and politics". In 2019, Zervas used nationalistic rhetoric regarding the Macedonian name dispute to win electoral power through the votes of those against the

Prespa Agreement Prespa (, , ) is a region shared between North Macedonia, Greece and Albania. It shares the same name with the two Prespa lakes which are situated in the middle of the region. The largest town is Resen in North Macedonia with 9,000 inhabitan ...

. In 2013 he was elected as a member of the Central Representation of the Technical Chamber of Greece and the regional department of Central Macedonia.

2023 election

In 2023 Zervas won the first round of the 2023 mayoral election receiving 27.3% of the vote. But he lost the second round by a landslide victory from Stelios Angeloudis with Angeloudis receiving 67% of the vote to Zervas' 32%.

References

Living people 1964 births Mayors of Thessaloniki Aristotle University of Thessaloniki alumni Brown University alumni Politicians from Thessaloniki {{Greece-politician-stub