The acting head of Greece's conservative New Democracy party, and head of the opposition, quit Tuesday after a weekend fiasco that saw the party fail to elect a new leader. "To de-escalate the tension...I am handing over the acting chairmanship," Evangelos Meimarakis told reporters. Party elections for a new leader had been scheduled for Sunday but had to be cancelled at the last minute after it became apparent that the transmission of official results could not be guaranteed by the technical company assigned the project.
A former defence minister and parliament speaker, 61-year-old Meimarakis denied responsibility for the glitch and is standing again for party leader. No date has been set for the new party election. On Tuesday Meimarakis said he had been subjected to "vulgar" attacks by critics in the party.
The other candidates for the party leadership are central Macedonia regional governor Apostolos Tzitzikostas, lawmaker Adonis Georgiadis and the party's parliamentary spokesman Kyriakos Mitsotakis, son of former premier Constantine Mitsotakis. In power for nearly half the last four decades, New Democracy lost successive elections in January and September to the left-wing Syriza party of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. The latter vote was lost under Meimarakis, who has been in charge of the party since former leader Antonis Samaras stepped down in July.