Kostas Bakoyannis

Born 1978 in Athens to New Democracy politicians Dora and Pavlos Bakoyannis, Kostas Bakoyannis lost his father Pavlos in 1989, when he was assassinated by the leftist terrorist group,^[1] Revolutionary Organization 17 November. Bakoyannis graduated from Millfield, a public school in Somerset, England, in 1996.^[2] He studied history and International Relations at Brown University and graduated from Harvard with a Master of Public Administration. He holds a PhD thesis at St Antony's College, Oxford, in the field of Political Science and International Relations. ^[3]He speaks English and German.^[4] Kostas Bakoyannis’ articles are often published in the Greek and foreign press.^[5]

His uncle is the current Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and his maternal grandfather was the former prime minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

In August 2010, Bakoyannis announced to run for mayoral office as an independent candidate in the small town of Karpenisi in Evrytania, where his father had originally come from. New Democracy decided not to challenge Bakoyannis with a candidate of its own,^[6] though the party had expelled his mother Dora in May for voting in favor of the austerity measures proposed by the Papandreou government.^[7]

Kostas Bakoyannis won the local elections with 54.3%. In a To Vima interview he strongly defended the bailout deal stating that "where we have come to after all the crimes that the Greek political system made over the past 30 years, we had no choice but the Memorandum." He said that he wouldn't rule out joining the new Democratic Alliance party his mother had founded, and that "Greece needs suicidal governments ready to kill themselves to save the country."^[8]

During his third year as Mayor of Karpenisi, Bakoyannis decided to run for the governorship of Central Greece, again as an independent. His decision to leave the Mayorship was initiated by a growing number of citizen’s voices ^[9] from the greater Central Greece area, not only Karpenisi, who saw the risks and the opportunities that were coming up ahead for their area in the next 5 year term of the new Governor, and wanted a results oriented, tested and tried candidate for the job.^[10] He was however backed by New Democracy, which again nominated no candidate of its own, and clearly won the 2014 regional election with 56.06% in the second round, defeating Syriza's candidate Evangelos Apostolou.^[11]

Bakoyannis was elected Mayor of Athens after the local elections of 2019 and took office on 1 September 2019.

Bakoyannis lost re-election in 2023, being defeated by Haris Doukas.^[12]

• European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), Member^[13]

He has four children, Pavlos, Olympia, Danai and Dimos.