Vangelis Meimarakis

Vangelis Meimarakis (2015)

Evangelos "Vangelis" Meimarakis ( Greek Ευάγγελος “Βαγγέλης” Μεϊμαράκης , * December 14, 1953 in Athens ) is a Greek politician and member of the Nea Dimokratia . After Andonis Samaras resigned on July 5, 2015, Meimarakis temporarily took over the chairmanship of the Nea Dimokratia. Before that he was President of Parliament until January 2015 .

biography

Meimarakis comes from a Cretan family. He studied law at the Pantion University of Athens , where he was already involved in a student political union. In 1974 he joined the conservative Nea Dimokratia and was a founding member of the party youth organization ONNED.

After completing his military service, he was admitted to the Athens bar in 1984. He became chairman of the ONNED executive committee and headed the organization until March 1987.

In the parliamentary elections in June 1989 he was elected on the list of Nea Dimokratia for the constituency of Athens A as a deputy, in the following elections in November 1990 and 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2009 and 2012 re-elected. From 1992 to 1993 he was Deputy Minister for Culture (responsible for sport). Afterwards Meimarakis was general secretary of the Nea Dimokratia.

After a cabinet reshuffle, he became Minister of Defense in the first cabinet of Kostas Karamanlis in February 2006 . He also held this office until the end of Kostas Karamanli's government on October 7, 2009. He was President of Parliament from June 29, 2012 to February 5, 2015 .

At the end of September 2012, Meimarakis announced that he was temporarily suspending his post as President of Parliament because of the corruption allegations against him. After the allegations were found to be unfounded relatively quickly, he resumed official business as President of Parliament in October 2012.

After Andonis Samaras resigned on July 5, 2015 as a result of the "no" victory in the referendum , Meimarakis temporarily took over the chairmanship of the Nea Dimokratia. On July 24, 2015, he was unanimously confirmed as chairman by the board of the Nea Dimokratia, expressly also with regard to a possible early election of the parliament . In spring 2016 at the latest, however, as was the case most recently with the election of Samaras in 2009, the party constitution stipulated that a new party leader should be elected by the party base.

In the new election in September 2015 , Meimarakis was the top candidate of the Nea Dimokratia, which, contrary to the forecasts, could hardly increase its share of the vote and remained in the opposition. Meimarakis ran for the election of the party chairman by the party base and supporters of the party, which was supposed to take place on November 22, 2015, but failed because of a computer glitch and had to be postponed. Meimarakis took responsibility for this and resigned from the party leadership, but maintained his candidacy. On December 20, the election of the party leader took place, Meimarakis received 39.8% of the votes of the Nea Dimokratia base, thus reaching first place, but not an absolute majority. On January 10, 2016, the runoff election between Meimarakis and the second-placed Kyriakos Mitsotakis took place, from which Mitsotakis emerged as the winner.

Web links

Commons : Vangelis Meimarakis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry on Vangelis Meimarakis in the Members' database of the European Parliament
• Biography on the website of the Greek Parliament
• Personal website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Mitsotakis' list of ministers, 1990–1993 (Greek)
2. ↑ List of ministers, Cabinet Kostas Karamanlis II, 2004–2007 (Greek)
3. ↑ List of ministers, Cabinet Kostas Karamanlis II, 2007–2009 (Greek)
4. ↑ Speakers of Parliament of Greece (Greek)
5. ↑ NZZ of September 26, 2012: "Suspicion of corruption shakes Greece".
6. ↑ Kathimerini: "Meimarakis will stay until spring" (Greek)
7. ↑ Greece newspaper of September 30, 2015
8. ↑ Greece newspaper from November 27, 2015
9. ^ Spiegel Online