Antonis Samaras

His paternal uncle, George Samaras, was a long-standing Member of Parliament for Messinia in the 1950s and 1960s.

Samaras grew up among the Athens well-connected families, playing tennis.

At the age of 17, he won the Greek Teen Tennis Championship.

Antonis Samaras (Αντώνης Σαμαράς, ; born 23 May 1951) is a Greek politician who served as 14th Prime Minister of Greece from 2012 to 2015.

He was the seventh party leader since it was founded in 1974.

Born in Athens, Samaras is the son of Doctor Konstantinos Samaras (a Professor of Cardiology) and Lena (née Zannas, a maternal granddaughter of author Penelope Delta).

His brother, Alexander, is an architect.

He attended school in the Athens College (founded by his maternal great-grandfather, Stefanos Delta and Emmanouil Benakis, Delta's father-in-law) and graduated from Amherst College in 1974 with a degree in economics, and then from Harvard University in 1976 with an MBA.

Samaras and former Prime Minister George Papandreou were dormitory roommates during their student years at Amherst College, but became bitter political rivals.

He is married and has a daughter and a son.

Samaras has been elected as a Member of Parliament, initially for Messinia, from 1977 onward.

Samaras started his national political career as Minister of Finance in 1989; he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1992 (with a brief interruption in 1990) and Minister of Culture in 2009.

In 1989 he became Minister of Finance, later advancing to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the New Democracy government of Prime Minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis (1990–1993), from which post he caused the Macedonia naming dispute to ignite.

In a meeting of the Greek political leaders under the President of the Republic on the naming dispute on 13 April 1992, Samaras presented his own conditions for the solution of the crisis.

These were rejected by both the President of the Republic, Konstantinos Karamanlis as well as the Prime Minister, Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

Samaras was subsequently removed from Minister of Foreign Affairs.

After being removed from his post, Samaras founded his own party, Political Spring (Greek: Πολιτική Άνοιξη, romanised as Politiki Anoixi), located politically to the right of New Democracy.

Samaras was previously best known for a 1993 controversy in which he effectively caused the New Democracy government, of which he was a member, to fall from power.

The defection of one Member of Parliament from New Democracy to Samaras' party caused the government's fall from power in 1993.

Political Spring gained 4.9% of the vote in the 1993 general election, earning ten seats in the Hellenic Parliament.

It gained 8.7% in the 1994 European Parliament election, earning two seats.

Its decline began in the 1996 general election, when it gained 2.94 per cent, just below the 3 per cent threshold necessary to enter parliament.

It participated in the 1999 European Parliament election, but only got 2.3%, which was not enough to elect MEPs.

Political Spring did not participate in the 2000 general election; Samaras publicly supported the New Democracy party.

In spite of this, he rejoined the party in 2004 and was elected to its leadership in a closely fought intra-party election in late 2009.

Before the 2004 general election, Samaras dissolved his party, rejoined New Democracy and he was elected a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in the 2004 European elections.

In the 2007 general election he was elected to the Hellenic Parliament for Messinia and consequently resigned from the European Parliament.

He was succeeded by Margaritis Schinas.

A member of the New Democracy party, he was its president from 2009 until 2015.

In January 2009 he was appointed Minister of Culture following a government reshuffle.

In this capacity he inaugurated the new Acropolis Museum in July 2009.

He was reelected in Messenia in 2009.

After New Democracy resoundingly lost the 2009 legislative election, Kostas Karamanlis resigned as head of the party, prompting a leadership race, and Samaras ran for the post.

Early polls showed he was running neck-and-neck with the perceived initial favorite Dora Bakoyanni, the former Foreign Minister and former Athens mayor.

Shortly thereafter, another leadership candidate, former Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos, announced he was resigning his candidacy and would instead support Samaras.

In a break with previous practice, an extraordinary party congress resolved that the new leader would be elected by party members in a countrywide ballot.

Samaras' candidacy soared in opinion polls and finished the race as a favorite.

In the early morning hours of 30 November 2009, Samaras was elected the new President of New Democracy.

Following early results showing Samaras in a comfortable lead, Bakoyanni, his main rival, conceded defeat and called Samaras to congratulate him.

He accepted his election with a speech at the party headquarters, and pledged to carry out a broad ideological and organizational reform, aspiring to regain majority status.