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Tag: Katerina Sakellaropoulou

  • Greek singer-songwriter Dionysis Savvopoulos buried in a state funeral

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    ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Popular Greek singer-songwriter Dionysis Savvopoulos was buried Saturday at Athens’ First Cemetery in a state-sponsored funeral, four days after his death at age 80.

    Savvopoulos had died of a heart attack after battling cancer since 2020.

    Thousands came to pay their respects to a well-beloved, if sometimes controversial, artist as he lay in state at a chapel of the Athens Metropolitan Cathedral Saturday morning. Hundreds made the nearly 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) walk behind the hearse to the cemetery.

    The presence of a Greek navy band playing mournful music was indicative of the change in Savvopoulos’s status, from someone lionized by anarchist-leaning leftists in the 1960s and 1970s and dismissed by the establishment as a long-haired freak, to a figure embraced by the same establishment and cultural mainstream.

    Savvopoulos never changed his musical style — a blend of rock, folk-rock, jazz and Greek popular music — to conform to mainstream tastes. Always a political animal, he didn’t shy away from criticizing the left and its illusions, especially on his 1989 album “The Haircut,” whose sleeve showed him beardless with long locks. A few of his songs drew the enmity of some of his longtime admirers. The beard grew back but his politics remained moderate.

    Conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the first of many who eulogized Savvopoulos during the funeral service, used the lyrics of the 1972 song “Messenger Angel” to portray the artist as a speaker of uncomfortable truths that many did not want to hear. “If he had no pleasant news to tell/better tell us none,” he quoted the song’s ending.

    Others who joined in eulogizing Savvopoulos were former President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, fellow musicians, artists and literary figures, some from his hometown of Thessaloniki, and one of his two grandsons.

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  • Greece heads to the polls again on June 25

    Greece heads to the polls again on June 25

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    ATHENS — Greece’s parliament was dissolved Monday, less than 24 hours after convening, paving the way for a new election on June 25.

    Under a decree signed by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, caretaker Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas and Cabinet ministers, the next parliament will convene on July 3.

    No party achieved an overall majority in the national election on May 21, which was held under a simple proportional representation system; there was no attempt to form a coalition.

    The conservative New Democracy party achieved a landslide victory, getting 40.79 percent of the vote — but that was not enough to form a single-party government.

    The next election will be contested under a different system that grants the winning party up to 50 bonus parliamentary seats; that gives the conservative New Democracy an edge to form a majority government.

    However, the number of parties that make it into parliament will be crucial to determining the makeup of the eventual majority. The more parties pass the 3 percent threshold needed to win seats in parliament, the higher the share of the vote needed for an outright majority.

    On May 21, two parties barely missed the cutoff, with 2.9 percent support; if they pass that baseline on June 25, it could raise the threshold for a party to achieve an overall majority to about 39 percent.

    The conservatives are appealing to voters not to take the result for granted and head back to polls, while opposition leaders called on them to snip New Democracy’s lead and avoid the prospect of a dominant majority government with no significant opposition.

    GREECE NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

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    Nektaria Stamouli

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