Stefanos Manos

His political career started in the New Democracy party, for which he became a Member of Parliament in 1977. During the 1980s he would be the unpopular forerunner of Greek privatization. In April 1999, he formed his own party, The Liberals, but following its unsuccessful performance in the elections held in June for the European parliament (1,62%), he returned to the Hellenic Parliament firstly in 2000 as MP in co-operation with the major party of New Democracy, and again in the 2004 elections as independent by the statewide list but surprisingly on a rival PASOK ticket.^[1]

After he suspended his Liberals' operation in 2002, he established in 2009 his new own party, Drassi, which he continues to lead. Heading Drassi, he took part in the 2009 European parliament election (0,76%). In May 2012, Drassi merged with the newly formed party Recreate Greece for the 2012 elections.

Manos is a notable critic of profligate government spending and waste. He is famous for saying in 1992, while he was Greek finance minister, that "it would be cheaper for Greece to send every rail passenger to their destination by taxi",^[2] a quote which was used by Michael Lewis in his book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World.

Political offices
New office	Minister of the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works 1980	Succeeded by Tzannis Tzannetakis
Preceded by Efthymios Christodoulou	Minister of the National Economy 1992–1993	Succeeded by Georgios Gennimatas
Preceded by Ioannis Paleokrassas	Minister of Finance 1992–1993