The head of Greece’s main opposition SYRIZA party, Stefanos Kasselakis, on Friday was inducted for obligatory military service, although he’ll only serve 20 days due to his long-time expatriate status and pay a fixed sum for the rest of the term.
Kasselakis, who turns 36 this month, was accompanied by family members, close associates and several television crews during his arrival at a military camp outside the south-central Greece city of Thebes.
Before entering the base’s main gate at around 4 p.m. the leftist party leader took the opportunity to “make the political rounds” in the main square of Thebes, where he briefly spoke to an assembled crowd and engage in the obligatory handshakes and selfies with locals.
A political unknown in the country before he suddenly emerged last September to vie for and win a hotly contested internal party election that some naysayers judge was engineered by Tsipras and his closest associates, Kasselakis has nonetheless achieved an incessant media presence, cultivated a pugnacious style and exhibited signs of a political “maverick” unbeholden to partisan ideology and internal party balances.
While the normal conscription term for male Greek citizens is roughly nine months, expatriates who live permanently abroad – as Kasselakis did before returning to Greece this year – have the opportunity to serve a fraction of the term.
