Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura on Friday resigned from the Cabinet in order – as she said in a resignation letter – to focus on the upcoming European Parliament election, where she is a candidate for ruling SYRIZA party.
She will, as expected, retain her seat in Parliament, regardless of the outcome of the Europarliament election.
Kountoura is among the more distinctive lawmakers that comprise the slim current government majority in Parliament. She was first elected to Parliament a decade ago with center-right New Democracy (ND), ditching the latter in 2012 to join the small right-wing and anti-bailout Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party, founded by controversial former minister and ex-coalition partner Panos Kammenos.
Kountoura bolted from Kammenos’ party earlier this year, from which she was elected to Parliament in the twin 2015 elections, retaining her Cabinet position in the hard left Tsipras government as AN.EL imploded over differences in its shrinking ranks to the Prespa agreement.
A quickly tabled draft law last month was approved by the government majority in Parliament to allow serving MPs the right to vie for the European Parliament election without resigning, legislation widely panned by the opposition as tailor-made for Kountoura and another defector from the centrist Potami party, Spyros Danellis.
The very high-profile Kountoura, a former runway and cosmetics model in the 1980s, has taken much of the credit for the surge in annual tourism numbers in Greece since 2016.
