Socialist leader Fofi Gennimata dies of cancer in Greece

Party of European Socialists PES President Sergei Stanishev L welcomes PASOK Socialist Party leader Fofi Gennimata at a meeting of the European Socialists in Bratislava, Slovakia, September 16, 2016. REUTERS Radovan Stoklasa File Photo Radovan Stoklasa

ATHENS, Oct 25 Reuters - Fofi Gennimata, the leader of the socialist opposition Movement for Change, died on Monday after a long battle with cancer.

The death of Gennimata, 57, was announced by the Evangelismos hospital where she had been receiving treatment in recent weeks.

Gennimata was'shocked' to learn of Kyriakos Mitsotakis's death, his office said in a statement.

Mitsotakis, who arrived in Greece on Monday on a two-day visit, would be changing his schedule and returning to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday evening, his office said. A tour of Greek islands cancelled for Wednesday and Thursday.

Gennimata was elected leader of the former ruling PASOK party in 2015 and was appointed president of the Movement for Change, a coalition of centre-left parties formed around PASOK in 2017.

Gennimata was the daughter of the Greek politician Georgios Gennimatas, who was a founding member of PASOK, which was dominant in the eighties and nineties in Greece. A mother of three, she was first elected to parliament in 2000.