The die has been cast for the position of general secretary of the political committee of New Democracy and Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ choice is the current deputy minister of Transport, Konstantinos Kyranakis. His election is expected to take place at the first meeting of New Democracy’s Political Committee with its new composition, as it emerged after the recent congress of the ruling party. The meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday, June 10, in the afternoon.
Over the past five years, the top position – after the president – in the party hierarchy has changed hands four times. In 2021, the then president of ONNED, Pavlos Marinakis, was elected, who was succeeded after the 2023 national elections by Maria Syrengela. In the summer of 2025, Ms. Syrengela resigned and the position was taken by the MP for Trikala and former minister Kostas Skrekas. This past April, he resigned due to the involvement of his name in the case file forwarded to Parliament regarding OPEKEPE, and the organizational director of the party, Stelios Kontadakis, temporarily assumed the duties of secretary.
Recently, various recommendations had been made to the prime minister for this critical role, as it will lead the party to the 2027 elections, a difficult and demanding mission. Among others, the names of Vasilis Spanakis, Giorgos Stylios, and Giannis Pappas had been put on the table.
Mr. Mitsotakis had concluded that the party secretary must also be an MP, but also have a party trajectory. The now 39-year-old Mr. Kyranakis has served for many years as an executive of DAP-NDFK and ONNED, while he was also the first Greek elected to the position of president of the youth organization of the European People’s Party (YEPP) in 2013. He first entered the deep waters of political life in 2014, when he ran as a candidate for European Parliament with New Democracy.
In recent days, the prime minister formed the conviction that – beyond these characteristics – the new secretary must also be a member of the government, so as to have greater recognition and prestige and to know the government work well, three elements that can prove particularly useful on the path to the polls. Thus, with this profile in mind, he settled on the choice of Kyranakis, who among other things belongs to the so-called millennial generation and can communicate on better terms with youth.
Born in April 1987, married with two children, Mr. Kyranakis is a graduate of the Law School of the University of Athens with postgraduate studies in strategic communication at the American College of Greece. He has worked as a freelancer in digital marketing, website and application development, before becoming actively involved in politics. In January 2017, the international magazine Forbes selected him among the 30 young people under 30 with the greatest influence in Europe, in the Law & Policy category, during a period when he had been appointed deputy press representative of New Democracy.
In the 2019 national elections, he was elected MP for the first time in the country’s largest region, in the South Athens Sector, and was re-elected in the May and June 2023 elections. On June 27, 2023, he entered government for the first time, assuming the duties of Deputy Minister of Digital Governance, while during the March 2025 reshuffle he was upgraded to Deputy Minister of Transport, in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. The search for his replacement in the ministry, which is very close to being “locked in,” certainly creates interest.
