Stefanos Kasselakis

Stefanos Kasselakis (Greek: Στέφανος Κασσελάκης; born 29 March 1988) is a Greek businessman, entrepreneur and politician, who previously served as the leader of Syriza. He is now the leader of the political party "Movement for Democracy" (Κίνημα Δημοκρατίας), which he founded in November 2024.

Kasselakis spent a considerable portion of his life residing in the United States, where he worked in the banking and shipping sectors and contributed as a writer for The National Herald. He was registered as a Republican, supported Kyriakos Mitsotakis and endorsed his candidacy for party leader in 2015. He was an MP candidate with Syriza in the May and June 2023 Greek parliamentary elections.

In the 2023 Syriza leadership election, he secured a surprising victory over Effie Achtsioglou. However, a few months after his win, Syriza underwent a division, resulting in the departure of 11 Members of Parliament (MPs) and three Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), who exited the party in protest of Kasselakis' ideology and practices. The ideological shift and lack of clarity within the party led to substantial criticism of its leadership, particularly after the 2024 European Parliament elections, where Syriza’s share of the vote further dropped to 14.9%.

As a result of the growing discontent, 87 members of the party's Central Committee filed a motion of no confidence against him. On 8 September 2024, the party's Political Secretariat declared that he was being removed from office.

After these events Kasselakis was briefly a candidate for the 2024 Syriza leadership elections before being blocked from running by the party's 2024 conference resulting in Socratis Fammellos winning the elections later this year. Kasselakis left Syriza and created the Movement Of Democracy (Kinima Dimocratias). With him 6 MPs left Syriza, 5 of which joined his new party.