Bakoyannis announces candidacy for Athens municipality

The regional governor of central Greece (Sterea Ellada), Costas Bakoyannis, on Monday officially announced his candidacy for the city of Athens, a development that was more-or-less expected over the recent period.

Bakoyannis, the son of former Athens mayor and foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis and the nephew of main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is billed as the front-runner in the race for Greece’s biggest and most populous municipality. The actual municipality, however, is one of numerous smaller municipalities comprising the greater Athens area, which hosts slightly less than half the country’s population of roughly 11 million residents.

Current mayor Giorgos Kaminis will not seek a re-election, whereas the only other candidate from a mainstream party is Pavlos Geroulanos, a former culture minister in the George Papandreou government between 2009 and 2011. The latter is supported by the KI.NAL group, which mostly includes the once-dominant PASOK party.

Ruling SYRIZA party, which is trailing ND by significant margins in opinion polls, has yet to announce a candidate for Athens.