Androulakis wins 1st round of polls for leadership of Movement for Change party

By Magda Panoutsopoulou

ATHENS (AA) - European Parliament lawmaker Nikos Androulakis won the first round of elections Sunday for the leadership of the center-left Movement for Change (KINAL) party with 37.06%.

Over 90% of the votes have been counted so far.

Former Prime Minister George Papandreou came in second with 27.8% and will face Androulakis in the second round next Sunday.

Papandreou served as prime minister from 2009 to 2011 and previously as education minister and minister of foreign affairs during the governments of the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) party, which was founded by his father and former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou.

More than 270,000 citizens participated in the first round of the latest elections, surpassing the 217,000 participants in the 2017 elections.

The polls opened at 7 a.m. (0500GMT) at 840 election centers in Greece and in Greek communities in Europe, the US and Australia.

Other candidates were Pavlos Geroulanos, who served as culture and tourism minister from 2009-2012, former KINAL spokesman Pavlos Christides, former justice and interior minister Haris Kastanidis and former education minister and law professor Andreas Loverdos, who came in third with 26%.

KINAL was founded as a coalition of center-left parties in 2018. The party currently comprises PASOK and the Movement of Democratic Socialists (KIDISO), which was formed in 2015 by a group of parliamentarians led by Papandreou who broke away from PASOK.

It currently holds 22 seats and is part of the opposition in the 300-member Greek parliament.