The River Το Ποτάμι | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Stavros Theodorakis |
| Founded | 26 February 2014 (2014-02-26)[1] |
| Dissolved | 24 November 2019[2] |
| Ideology | Social liberalism[3][4] Social democracy[5] |
| Political position | Centre[6][7] tocentre-left[8] |
| National affiliation | KINAL (2017–2019) |
| European Parliament group | Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats[9](2014–2019) |
| Colours | Red,blue |
| Website | |
topotami | |
The River (Greek:Το Ποτάμι,romanized: To Potami,IPA:[topoˈtami]) was acentrist[6][7] andsocial-liberal[3][4]political party in Greece. The party was founded in February 2014 byStavros Theodorakis. The party did not run in the 2019 elections and had no seats in theHellenic Parliament.
The party was launched on 11 March 2014 inAthens by TV presenterStavros Theodorakis.[1][10]
In April 2014, representatives of The River met thePresident of the European Parliament,Martin Schulz, and with representatives of theProgressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D),Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) andThe Greens–European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) parliamentary groups.[11]
In the2014 European Parliament election held on 25 May 2014, the party received 6.6% of the national vote and the mandate to elect twoMEPs,Giorgos Grammatikakis andMiltos Kyrkos.
On 27 May 2014, the two incoming MEPs announced their decision to sit with the S&D group in the European Parliament, whose intake included two MEPs from thePanhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK),[9][12] citing the group's commitment to "tackling the recession and unemployment in Greece and the South in general",[13] while ruling out joining theParty of European Socialists.[14]
On 24 December 2014, the newly founded partyReformers for Democracy and Development of formerDemocratic Left (DIMAR) MPSpyros Lykoudis announced an alliance with The River.[15]
On 5 January 2015, theLiberal Alliance party suspended talks about a joint electoral list with The River after the participation of Liberal Alliance's presidentGregory Vallianatos had reportedly been ruled out by The River officials.[16] Later, The River's leader Theodorakis andTheodoros Skylakakis, the leader of the liberal partyDrasi, gave a joint press conference announcing a jointelectoral list for the forthcoming legislative election.[17][18]
In theJanuary 2015 legislative election on 25 January 2015, The River received 6.1% of the electoral vote, finishing fourth place with a mandate for 17 seats in theHellenic Parliament. In the aftermath of the election party leader Theodorakis stressed that Greece needed to avoid anothersnap election,[19] and, while ready to talk with SYRIZA leaderAlexis Tsipras about forming acoalition government,[20] he said they wouldn't support any coalition that includes anti-European forces.[19] The River became part of the parliamentary opposition to the governingfirst Tsipras cabinet.
In the second election of the year, theSeptember 2015 legislative election on 20 September 2015, the party received a reduced vote count of 4.1%, receiving 11 seats,[21] remaining in opposition.
On 19 April 2016, Yiannis Theoharis resigned from To Potami's parliamentary group.[22]
On 18 October 2016, Iasonas Fotilas was expelled from the party.[23] On 24 January 2017, he joinedNew Democracy.[24]
On 21 November 2016, Katerina Markou declared herself an independent.[25] On 27 February 2018, she joinedNew Democracy.[26]
On 13 January 2017, Rodopi MPIlhan Ahmet became the fourth MP elected in the September 2015 general election to resign from the party. He later announced he was joining theDemocratic Alignment parliamentary group.[27]
On 7 February 2017,Larissa MP Konstantinos Bargiotas resigned from the party, indicating that he would join theDemocratic Alignment parliamentary group.[28]
In July 2017, PASOK leaderFofi Gennimata announced the formation of a new centre-left party before the end of the year.[29] In the summer of 2017, Potami leader Stavros Theodorakis decided to participate in the creation of the party to provide an alternative toSyriza, led by prime ministerAlexis Tsipras, andNew Democracy, led byKyriakos Mitsotakis. A leadership election for the new party will be held on 12 November and 19 November 2017, with initially 10 candidates declaring their participation, including Theodorakis.[30] After the leadership election both Potami and PASOK–DIMAR will continue to have separate parliamentary groups until the new party's founding congress in spring 2018.[31][32]
On the first stage open primary election on 12 November 2017, Theodorakis came in fourth place with 9.8% of the vote, failing to reach the second round.[33][34] The run-off election on 19 November was won by Gennimata with 56% of the vote, with the new party's official foundation scheduled for 2018.[35][36]
On 2 December 2017, Theodorakis was announced as being part of the six-member ruling council for the new party, theMovement for Change (KINAL).[37]
On 1 July 2018, The River exited from KINAL due to issues including disagreements between Theodorakis and Gennimata over theMacedonia naming dispute.[38][39]
In the2019 European Parliament election on 26 May 2019, To Potami received just 1.5% of the national vote, failing to return any MEPs. Following the result, party leader Stavros Theodorakis announced that the party would not participate in the2019 legislative election as well as his resignation as leader.[40]
Following its launch, To Potami was initially described by the media aspro-European andcentrist,[41] inspired bysocial democracy andsocial liberalism[42] and heavily reliant on Theodorakis' personal popularity to attract voters.[1] It has been also described asliberal.[43] The general description of the party's political position ranged fromcentrist[44][45][46] tocentre-left.[9][47][48]
| Election | Hellenic Parliament | Rank | Government | Leader | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | ±pp | Seats won | +/− | ||||
| January 2015 | 373,868 | 6.1% | New | 17 / 300 |  17 | #4 | Opposition | Stavros Theodorakis |
| September 2015 | 222,166 | 4.1% | -2.0 | 11 / 300 |  6 | #6 | Opposition | Stavros Theodorakis |
| 2019 | Did not run | – | -4.1 | 0 / 300 | 11 | – | Extra-parliamentary | Stavros Theodorakis |
| European Parliament | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election | Votes | % | ±pp | Seats won | +/− | Rank | Leader |
| 2014 | 377,438 | 6.6% | New | 2 / 21 | 2 | #5 | Stavros Theodorakis |
| 2019 | 86,003 | 1.5% | -5.1 | 0 / 21 | 2 | #9 | Stavros Theodorakis |
...Potami's pro-European Union, centrist policies...
...Potami, the centrist party...
...To Potami ("The River"), a new, anti-corruption, centrist party.
...To Potami (The River) which I can best describe as a Blairite modernising centrist party...
The River (To Potami) is a moderate centre-left party
(in Greek)