NICOS A. CONSTANTOPOULOS

President of Synaspismos,
Member of Parliament

e-mail: nak@syn.gr

Nicos Constantopoulos was born at Crestena-Olympia in 1942. While studying Law at Athens University he became a leading member of the Democratic student and Youth Movement. During the dictatorship (1967-1974) he participated in the anti-junta resistance as a member of the "Democratic Defence" movement. He was arrested, tortured and sentenced to eight years imprisonment in 1970.

After the fall of the dictatorship he took an active part in the campaign for the abolition of the monarchy through a referum in December 1974. He has also been a member of human rights, peace and solidarity movements.

He was among the founders of PASOK, a member of its Central Commitee until 1975, when he was expelled due to political disagreement. Subsequently he worked closely and took part in election battles with the pro-renewal Left.

In 1989 Nicos Constantopoulos was among the founders and became a leading member of the Coalition of the Left and Progress (SYNASPISMOS). Within the Greek political spectrum, the party of SYNASPISMOS, represents the non communist progressive Left and has strong ties with the European Union. In June 1989 he was elected a Member of Parliament and served as Minister of the Interior in the Tzanetakis coalition government. He was re-elected M.P. in the subsequent elections of November 1989 and April 1990 as well as in the October 1996 elections, when SYNASPISMOS achieved a 5,2% of the national votes, becoming the fourth party in the Parliament of Greece in terms of electoral power.

The 2nd regular Congress of SYN 1996 re-elected N.Constantopoulos as party President. He was the only candidate for the post.

During all these years he never stopped practising law and became well-known in Greece for his participation in human rights and political persecution cases.

During the past two years he has lead all the popularity opinion polls, among all the Greek politicians by far.