Stefanos Manos, a veteran politician who championed both free-market economic policies and the environment, died on Saturday at the age of 86, Greek media reported.
No cause of death was immediately given, but he was known to have faced health problems in recent years.
An engineer who initially worked in the private sector, he turned to politics in the 1970s and served in several ministries, including Environment and Finance, until 1993.
Initially a member of the conservative New Democracy party, he was kicked out in 1998 by then leader Kostas Karamanlis, for flouting party discipline and daring to vote a law on state-owned enterprises introduced by the government of reformist socialist Prime Minister Costas Simitis.
Manos went of to found two small liberal parties, the Liberals and Drassi (Action); he was re-elected in 2000, under New Democracy, and, in 2004, with the socialist PASOK, in a surprise move by then party leader George Papandreou to include him and another die-hard free marketeer, Andreas Andrianopoulos, in the party’s countrywide list. Manos, who eventually became an independent MP, delighted in attending PASOK congresses as a guest party leader and addressing the delegates as “comrades.”
