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At the age of 39 Zoe Konstantopoulou may be the youngest president of parliament, but she is not the first woman to occupy the post. However, she undoubtedly is one of the most prominent figures in the life of the Greek national assembly from the fall of the dictatorship in 1974 to the present day.

Although Anna Psarouda-Benaki was the first woman to hold the post of president of the Greek parliament from 2004-2007 on the proposal of Prime Minister at the time Kostas Karamanlis, Zoe Konstantopoulou is the youngest president of parliament and the first from the ranks of the left wing.

 
Anna Psarouda-Benaki was the first female president of parliament

Who is Zoe Konstantopoulou

The daughter of legendary SYRIZA chairman Nikos Konstantopoulos and journalist Lina Alexiou was involved in social and political struggles in the country for many years, as a law student at the University of Athens, where she was a member of the student board and a member of the European Union of law students.

On her way to the oath-taking ceremony of the Greek cabinet
 
In 1999-2000, she obtained a master’s degree from the Law Faculty of the Sorbonne, in the field of European criminal law and policy. In 2001-2002, she completed a second master's degree at the Law Faculty of Columbia University in New York, specialising in human rights and criminal, national and international law. In addition to her master's degree, she was awarded a special prize in the field of international law. While studying at the university Zoe Konstantopoulou was practising at the Permanent Representation of Greece to the United Nations and providing free legal assistance to low-income citizens who were threatened to remain on the street.

Furthermore, while practising law, she was dealing with issues related to the protection of human rights. She was also President of the Commission of Young Lawyers to the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP). Today Zoe Konstantopoulou is a member of the Association; she has organised, and participated with papers, in numerous international conferences and workshops.

With former speaker of parliament Evangelos Meimarakis

One of the cases that have marked her professional career undoubtedly is that of murdered student Alexandros Grigoropoulos, in which she, along with her father Nikos Konstantopoulos, defended the Grigoropoulos family.

Last December Zoe Konstantopoulou spoke with excitement about Nikos Romanos, a friend of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, who was on a hunger strike at that time in order to obtain permission to study at the university.

Soon after being elected a member of SYRIZA, she often became the target of attacks on the part of her colleagues from New Democracy and PASOK who attempted to associate her political path with the name of her father Nikos Konstantopoulos. Her reply was the following: "Including me in the "sons and daughters" category is irritating. I have never provided ground for this, neither at work nor while I was studying, nor in any area of my life."

Her appearance with the red balloon

"My name is Zoe Konstantopoulou and I declare that I engage in the fight of my generation and my country", she wrote in an open letter, having decided to run for MP of SYRIZA. Until then, she had already made significant steps in her education in Greece and abroad, being subsequently a successful lawyer in high-profile cases that drew public attention.

Zoe Konstantopoulou was born in Athens in December 1976. Those who has followed her development to date state that she has inherited from her mother her bright spirit and diligence and from her father the love for the legal profession, the persistence and resilience that do not stop, even when she is on a collision course.

"I decided to actively engage in politics as I consider it the duty of my generation to take their fate in their own hands, to make their future through the victory of equality and democracy, rejecting any tutelage", she said while making her first steps in politics, specifying, "what I would not do in politics is what I would never do as a citizen."

Prominent personality with prominent conflicts

As an MP she often is in the limelight, due to both raising her voice while talking with her colleagues in parliament and her appearances that have provoked discussions. A typical example is the case when she appeared in the plenary hall with a red balloon.

Zoe Konstantopoulou herself attributes the attacks against her, on the part of her political opponents, to her role as a reporter of the commission for preliminary investigation of the "Lagarde list" case and to her role in compiling "The Black Book of Shame" that contains cases, which SYRIZA considers scandalous. "It was perfectly clear that this was an attempt to exhaust me, morally and mentally, in order to concede, but in fact it was a wrong decision for the wrong person. Furthermore, the position of people was totally inspiring and encouraging," she said in connection with the attacks in question.

In the elections on 25 January, Zoe Konstantopoulou ranked first after leader Alexis Tsipras, receiving 34,485 votes in the first constituency which is Athens.