The livestock farmer who was elected MEP with Greek Solution
Kathimerini catches up with Toula Alexandraki, Euro polls’ greatest outlier, shortly after her first trip to Brussels
Seeking to acquaint ourselves with the retired livestock farmer who is among the 21 MEPs who will represent Greece in the European Parliament, we visited Toula Alexandrakis’ butcher shop in Alexandroupoli, northeastern Greece. Fortunately for us, she had defied the terrible heat and opened the business as usual, and was waiting for her son to come and take over before the morning rush. Sitting in a chair watching TV, she was surrounded by photographs of her children and grandson, and a multitude of saints.
Hours earlier, this 76-year-old, apron-clad grandmother had been in Brussels, formally accepting her seat at the European Union’s main legislative body. A passer-by popped in to say hi and ask about her trip. “How’s it going Toula?” he asked. “Are you leaving us for Strasbourg?” “I’ll only go when I’m needed; to fight for us,” she replied, with some hesitation. The news has traveled fast: Not only had Toula, whose actual name is Galateia Alexandraki and had run as such in the June 9 polls, actually won a seat after running with the populist nationalist Greek Solution party, she also defied rumors that had her giving up her seat to a more “experienced” candidate.
Before the European Parliament elections, Alexandraki had no interest in politics. Her only connection was that her daughter worked at Greek Solution party’s offices and also that the party had first included her on its ticket for the 2023 general elections in its bid to meet the 40% quota of women needed. Kathimerini understands that she is not the first “mother” on the party’s ballot to have been put there by their children for precisely this reason.
Greek Solution President Kyriakos Velopoulos was quick to defend his choice when Alexandraki’s lack of experience raised eyebrows, saying that she was nominated in order to represent the country’s livestock farmers. The Association of Greek Livestock Farmers, however, told Kathimerini that it had not approached any party with such a request. That said, some parties did indeed include livestock farmers on their tickets, but they had chosen much more prominent and active figures from the sector. A high-ranking official in the far-right party declined to comment on the choice when contacted by Kathimerini, except to say that “the Greek people decide who goes where.”
Alexandraki knew why she had been nominated, which is why she didn’t have a campaign of any kind. “I was there to help out, not to get elected,” she admitted. She didn’t have any posters announcing her candidacy, didn’t hold any events and didn’t even tell people she was running. “Now I’ve had customers saying that if I had been listed as Toula instead of Galateia, they would have voted for me. What was I supposed to have done? Given an envelope with the marked ballot to anyone who came in for half a kilo of meat? I was a bit embarrassed to be honest, running at my age.”
‘People started saying that I wasn’t from here, that I’m nobody. It pissed me off. If everyone around me supports me – my children, the party president – and tells me to go for it, why shouldn’t I?’
To this day, Alexandraki still doesn’t know why 51,465 voters chose her. The only theory she has is that it’s because her name was first on the ballot, which was in alphabetical order. Even other candidates running with Greek Solution in northern Greece had never heard of her. “Several people who voted for me told me they also voted for Alexandraki, only because she is a woman or because her name was first,” one of these candidates told Kathimerini laughing.
Everyone was surprised by her election, but none more than her. She was at her village in Koufovouno in Evros, on Sunday, June 9, cleaning the family house, which was going to be hosting a wedding the following weekend. “I was hosing down the balcony when my son came in from the stables, switched on the TV and said, ‘Mother, you’ve been elected!’ ‘Go on with your nonsense,’ I replied. I didn’t even put down the hose to look at the TV. He came back out after a few minutes and said, ‘Seriously, you’ve been elected.’”
Nevertheless, Alexandraki finished her chores before going into the house to confirm his claims. It was 11 p.m. by the time she first saw her name on the television screen; four hours after the polling stations had closed. She described the next few days as being really hard, as she was inundated by questions from journalists and neighbors. “Everyone was after me. I wasn’t at all well,” she said.
She was a wreck in her first television interview, stumbling over her words as she tried to thank voters for their support. Her performance caused an even greater furor. “People started saying that I wasn’t from here, that I’m nobody. It pissed me off. If everyone around me supports me – my children, the party president – and tells me to go for it, why shouldn’t I?”
Even though the buzz was that Alexandraki would step down, she decided to stay the course. The party, she said, has given her a team of young professionals who treat her with the same respect they would show their own mother. With their help, and dressed in a new suit, with a fresh hairstyle and manicure, she boarded the plane to Brussels and walked through the doors of the European Parliament.
“[Nikos] Papandreou, [Vangelis] Meimarakis and [Giorgos] Aftias came and congratulated me,” she says of her fellow Greek MEPs. “It was all good! They’re just people too!”
Thanks to the support of her family and her new team, Alexandraki, who had never traveled beyond neighboring Turkey and Bulgaria, who speaks no other language than her native Greek, is ready to make a go of it in Brussels and Strasbourg. She is, after all, no stranger to hard work.
One of five children, she grew up in Koufovouno, a village around an hour from Alexandroupoli, and was married to a farmer at the age of 16. “I worked 12 to 13 hours a day. I’d wake up at dawn and return at night.”
Despite the hard life, her marriage was a happy one and her husband an excellent man, she said. The couple expanded their farm to sheep and later to cattle. After 40 years as livestock farmers, they decided to take the next step by opening a butcher shop in Alexandroupoli and buying a home there. At this crucial juncture in her life, 13 years ago, her husband was killed after being hit in the stomach by a cow. Apart from the emotional shock, she also had to deal with the big financial opening her family had just made. With the help of her son, Alexandros Alexandrakis, she managed to hang onto the butcher shop and, until recently, the livestock farm too.
“My mother would sacrifice everything for me and my sister,” said Alexandros Alexandrakis, who described his mother as having “eyes in the back of her head.”
Having accepted her new role, Toula Alexandraki is now determined to make a success of it. She said she want to fight for the issues that are close to her heart – and her family’s livelihood. “I want to help livestock farmers; they’re dying out.” Left with just two farms, her village is a prime example, she said, describing how the other livestock farmers in the area picked up stakes because they could not keep up with rising prices, foreign imports branded as Greek, and the shortage of labor.
The second thing she has set her sights on is reviving Greece’s village. “We need to help young people return. My village breaks my heart. Everyone is leaving.”
She still doesn’t know how she’s going to accomplish what she has set out to do and knows that she “cannot change the world” but she won’t shy away from the challenge.
As we started saying our goodbyes, she kept going over our conversation and wondering whether she said anything “she shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t want to give anyone fodder,” she said. “I want to do everything right and that’s why people here love me. I know people are going to talk, but what can you do?”
She doesn’t know when she’ll be going to Brussels next. “Whenever they tell me,” she says to customers who ask. In September, however, the new European Parliament will be waiting for Toula Alexandraki to take her seat at its opening meeting.
