Who is the leader of greece

Greece profile - Leaders

President: Prokopis Pavlopoulos

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President Prokopis Pavlopoulos

Born in 1929, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, a veteran politician of the centre-right New Democracy Party was elected president by parliament in February 2015.

The vote was the fourth attempt to elect a successor to Karolos Papoulias, of the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), after previous failures triggered the downfall of the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and snap parliamentary elections.

The presidency is a largely ceremonial post, as executive power resides with the prime minister.

Prime Minister: Alexis Tsipras

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Mr Tsipras has compared austerity to "fiscal waterboarding"

Alexis Tsipras swept into power by winning snap elections in January 2015 on promises to ease the tough austerity imposed on Greece as part of international bailouts.

His leftwing Syriza party only narrowly missed out on winning an absolute majority in parliament, and formed an anti-austerity coalition with the nationalist Independent Greeks party.

He vowed to renegotiate bailouts worth €240bn (£179bn; $268bn) granted by the European Union, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund to keep heavily indebted Greece afloat in return for painful government spending cuts and restructuring.

Mr Tsipras and his allies argued that austerity had devastated the Greek economy, making it even harder to reduce the debt.

Soon after coming to power, his government announced a series of measures to reverse austerity, including raising the minimum wage and rehiring public sector workers, prompting fears of a Greek debt default and a resulting exit from the euro.

Voters rejected the eurozone creditors' bailout terms in a July referendum, only for Mr Tsipras to endorse even tougher terms for a third bailout agreed the following month.

Career

Born in 1974 - the year Greece returned to democracy after a brutal seven-year military dictatorship - Mr Tsipras joined the youth organisation of the Greek Communist Party while at university.

He went on carve out a political career in the broader radical left Synaspismos movement, and was elected its leader in 2006.

In 2010, the economic crisis transformed Syriza - a left alliance formed around Synaspismos - into the main voice of those opposed to the conditions attached to international bailouts, and it came second to the centre-right New Democracy party in elections 2012.

Mr Tsipras is known for wearing his shirts open-necked but once joked he would put on a tie on when Greece gets a debt write-off.

His predecessor, New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, in 2012 formed a coalition committed to pushing through the EU-IMF austerity measures, despite substantial public opposition.

His government to a certain extent succeeded in stabilising Greece's severe fiscal crisis, but came unstuck in the dying days of 2014, when parliament's failure to elect a president triggered an early election.

Greece operates as a presidential parliamentary republic, according to its Constitution. The Prime Minister is the head of the government while legislative powers belong to the Hellenic Parliament. There are 300 Members of Parliament, each elected for a four-year term. Much like the United States, Greece has a judiciary branch, which is separate from its legislative and executive branches. The Hellenic Parliament is located in the Old Royal Palace, the first royal palace of modern Greece, at Syntagma Square in Athens. 

Parliament acts as the legislative branch in Greece, with 300 members elected by votes of proportional representation by its constituents. A party must have a nationwide vote tally of at least 3 percent in order to elect members of Parliament. Greece's system is a bit different and more complex than other parliamentary democracies such as the United Kingdom.

Parliament elects the president, who serves a five-year term. Greek law limits presidents to only two terms. Presidents can grant pardons and declare war, but a parliamentary majority is needed to ratify these actions, and most other actions Greece's president performs. The formal title of Greece's president is President of the Hellenic Republic.

Prokopios Pavlopoulos, commonly shortened to Prokopis, became president of Greece in 2015. A lawyer and university professor, Pavlopoulos had served as the country's Minister of the Interior from 2004 to 2009. He was preceded in office by Karolos Papoulias.

In Greece, which has a parliamentary style of government, the real power is held by the Prime Minister who is the "face" of Greek politics. The President is the head of state, but his role is mainly symbolic. 

The prime minister is the head of the party with the most seats in Parliament. They serve as the government's chief executive.

Alexis Tsipras, a socialist, is the Prime Minister of Greece. Tsipras had served as prime minister from January 2015 to August 2015 but resigned when his Syriza party lost its majority in Greek Parliament. Tsipras called for a snap election, which was held in September 2015. He regained the majority and was elected and sworn in as Prime Minister after his party formed a coalition government with the Independent Greeks party.

After the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament (formally called the President of Parliament) is the person with the most authority in Greece's government. The Speaker steps in to serve as acting president if the president is incapacitated or out of the country on official government business. If a president dies while in office, the Speaker carries out the duties of that office until a new president is elected by Parliament.

Nikos Voutsis, a Greek politician who served as the Minister of the Interior and Administrative Reconstruction in the First Cabinet of Alexis Tsipras, the Prime Minister, has been the Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament since October 2015.