Kouvelis to resign as party chief
Fotis Kouvelis, leader of Democratic Left (DIMAR), on Wednesday announced he was stepping down as party chief following the party’s poor results in Sunday’s European Parliament elections. DIMAR dropped to 1.2 percent of the vote on Sunday, compared to 6.2 percent in the June 2012 national elections.
The move came as the party appeared divided following Sunday’s ballot with four MPs suggesting that Democratic Left should seek to cultivate ties with socialist PASOK and To Potami as part of an effort to develop a center-left alliance, while another five deputies expressed a desire for the party to move closer to opposition leader SYRIZA. Meanwhile, two MPs, Grigoris Psarianos and Vassilis Economou asked for Kouvelis to step down.
It remained unclear whether the party’s central committee, which is scheduled to convene on Saturday, would accept Kouvelis’s resignation.
