By Tasos Kokkinidis/Greek Reporter
Stefanos Kasselakis, the new leader of Greek main opposition SYRIZA, married his partner, Tyler Macbeth, at a civil ceremony in New York on Thursday.
Greece does not recognize same-sex marriages, so Kasselakis flew to the US to marry Macbeth.
Even the fact that he is openly gay and lives with his partner has not bothered more conservative individuals who are tired of the degradation of the political status quo.
He announced his decision to the top officials of the opposition party during a teleconference on Wednesday.
The holiday home where Stefanos Kasselakis and his partner, Tyler Macbeth, are staying in New York is jointly owned. According to images broadcast by MEGA Channel, it is a house in the suburbs with an outdoor pool surrounded by greenery.
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There is also a private lake, as noted on an online platform, on the property and a functioning animal farm with products for purchase.
However, when Stefanos Kasselakis and his partner are away from New York, they rent out one of the two apartments they jointly own for $1,500 per night.
Παντρεύονται αύριο στα Χάμπτον, ένα παραλιακό προάστιο της Νέας Υόρκης, ο Στέφανος Κασσελάκης και ο Τάιλερ Μακμπεθ.
— Areti Athanasiou (@AretiAthanasiu) October 18, 2023
Το ανακοίνωσε ο ίδιος στην εισήγησή του στην Πολιτική γραμματεία του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ.
Ευχές, πολλές ευχές! pic.twitter.com/4GICoVwhFU
Kasselakis’ rise from obscurity to lead SYRIZA
Stefanos Kasselakis became widely known in Greece a couple of months ago when he launched a barrage of social media posts and videos and announced his candidacy for the SYRIZA-PA leadership.
His political ideas and speech became popular on social media, as they lacked the toxicity that has marred Greece’s political scene in the past few years.
In September, he won the second-round ballot over Efi Achtsioglou. SYRIZA is the second largest party in the Greek Parliament, and its former party chairman, Alexis Tsipras, served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2015 to 2019.
It is also his good, clean-cut looks and friendly smile that have won many people from all sides of the political spectrum.
Even the fact that he is openly gay and lives with his partner has not bothered more conservative individuals who are tired of the degradation of the political status quo.
Ironically, the people who are most annoyed by his presence are the SYRIZA diehard leftists who remain suspicious of his US background.
Furthermore, they do not seem convinced by Kasselakis’ statement that he realized how bad capitalism is when he worked for Goldman Sachs.
Stefanos Kasselakis was born in Maroussi, a northern suburb of Athens, in 1988. At age fourteen, he moved with his family to the United States.
A silver medal in the “Archimedes” competition of the Hellenic Mathematical Society in the Balkan Youth Mathematics Olympiad won him a full scholarship from Phillips Academy, a university-preparatory high school in Andover, Massachusetts.
Once in the US, the young Greek attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Huntsman Program on an Andreas Dracopoulos scholarship and received two degrees: a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the Wharton School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the College of Arts & Sciences.
Alongside his studies, Kasselakis volunteered on the staff of Senator Joe Biden for the 2008 presidential election. He also worked at the foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
For a number of years, he was a contributor for The National Herald, initially writing the student column and finance later on.
In 2009, he was hired by Goldman Sachs in London and later in New York as a junior analyst but was fired in 2015.
During the economic crisis in Greece, he founded the non-profit online platform CVfromGreece which he helped young people improve their CVs for applications for work or study abroad.
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