Vasilis Leventis has died at the age of 75, as announced by his son through a post on social media made on Wednesday, 1 July at midday.

“With great pain today I say goodbye to my father”, wrote his adoptive son, Marios Georgiadis, in his post. “Your greatest legacy is not what you achieved, but the way you lived, the way you fought, and the way you remained faithful to your principles. Safe journey, father,” he also wrote in the message through which he bid him farewell.

Son’s post about Vasilis Leventis

“I never expected that this moment would come so early. At just 75 years old. With great pain today I say goodbye to my father. The man who raised me, supported me at every step of my life and taught me, through his example, what dignity, perseverance, patience, consistency and courage mean.

For many you were ‘the President’. For me, you were simply my father. I was not your biological child. But you never made me feel that I was anything less than your son. And today, looking back over a whole lifetime, I realise that blood may create kinship.

But love, care and presence are what create a father. And you were my father. Thank you for raising me as your own child. Thank you for everything you taught me, not only with your words, but with the way you lived.

Your greatest legacy is not what you achieved. It is the way you lived. The way you fought. The way you remained faithful to your principles.

Safe journey, father. I will never forget you.”

Who was Vasilis Leventis?

Vasilis Leventis was born in Messini. He was the fourth child of Apostolos and Grigoria Leventi, who originated from Korakovouni in Arcadia, while their parents came from Drymonas in Kythira. The Leventis family, after the destruction of their property by the German occupation forces, moved to Piraeus, where he completed his primary and secondary education (primary school and six-year gymnasium).

In 1969, he entered the National Technical University of Athens ninth in rank, in the School of Civil Engineering. He completed his studies with distinction and pursued postgraduate studies in Munich, Germany. He completed his military service in the Navy at the Naval Administrative Support Directorate (D.D.M.N.) in Salamis Naval Base, as an Acting Ensign, during 1976–1978. He spoke English and German.

During the anti-dictatorship struggle (1970–1974), while Leventis was a student at the Polytechnic, he possessed a printing duplicator and, with a group of fellow students, distributed leaflets calling on Athenians to rise up against the dictatorship [citation pending]. His first substantial involvement in politics came in 1975 when, as a collaborator of former Rector of the Polytechnic Kyprianos Biris, he contributed to drafting Articles 21 and 24 of the Constitution and to the creation of the DEPOS programme.

He first became actively involved in politics in 1974 as a founding member of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. After 1981, he expressed strong disagreements, believing that after forming a single-party government the party gradually moved away from its principles and essentially continued the policies of its predecessors. In 1982, he stood as a candidate for mayor of Piraeus.

In 1984, he founded the first ecological party in Greece, while the coalition he created under the name “Free” participated in the European elections the same year, receiving 8,816 votes and 0.15%. In 1986, he stood as a candidate for mayor of Athens, receiving 2,352 votes and 0.57%. In the June 1989 parliamentary elections, he ran as a candidate for New Democracy in B’ Athens but, with 5,212 preference votes, ranked 29th out of 31 candidates and was not elected.

In early 1990, he founded the party Ecologists–Peaceful Greens, with which he participated in the parliamentary elections of that year, and later that year he founded the television station Kanal 67 (Social and Ecological Television – Green Greece).

In 1992, he collaborated with the Democratic Center party of George G. Papandreou to create the party Union of Centrists and Ecologists, later known as Union of Centrists. The name was chosen to echo the Centre Union founded by Georgios Papandreou. Initially it included the phrase “and Ecologists”, which was later removed. The aim of the party’s creation was to represent the traditional centrist voter base of PASOK, which Leventis believed had been betrayed by its evolution.

Leventis became widely known due to his participation in the by-elections on 5 April 1992 in the B’ Athens constituency. Although he was not elected, he received more than 100,000 votes (114,942), far exceeding the electoral strength of his party in that constituency.

The Union of Centrists participated in all parliamentary and European Parliament elections from 1993 onwards. In the same year, Kanal 67 was renamed Kanal 40 and later sold at the end of 2000 to publisher Giorgos Kouris, becoming Extra Channel on 8 January of the following year. It was later acquired by Filippos Vryonis and renamed again in August 2003.

From 2000, Leventis hosted a political television programme on the same channel titled “Political Marathon”, broadcast weekly. In recent years, he continued broadcasting via the official YouTube channel of the Union of Centrists under the name “Anti-Diaploki TV”. He regularly wrote for the newspaper Avriani and was frequently invited by regional television stations for interviews and commentary. Since 2004, he has distributed the party newspaper “Anti-Diaploki”. He is also the author of two books compiling his articles from Avriani.

Leventis had proposed economist Lucas Papademos for the role of prime minister in a coalition government as early as June 2011, before the official mandate given on 10 November 2011 for the Papademos government, during Greece’s financial crisis. He continued to express support for Papademos and argued that the government operated under political pressure from supporting parties, otherwise it could have delivered better results.

In the January 2015 parliamentary elections, his party received 5.11% in the Thessaloniki A constituency, ahead of PASOK (4.12%) and KIDISO (1.33%), while nationally it received 1.79% with 110,826 votes. In the September 2015 elections, the Union of Centrists entered parliament with 3.43% and nine MPs, and Leventis himself was elected after 23 years.

In the July 2019 elections, the party received 1.24% and failed to re-enter parliament, and Leventis was not re-elected.