Panagiotis Kouroumplis is a Doctor of Social Sciences, MP and parliamentary spokesman of SYRIZA. At age 10 he lost his eyesight from the explosion of a German hand-grenade, a remnant of WW2. He was one of the pioneers of the Greek disability rights movement in the '70s. He is the first blind Greek ever to be elected in parliament and the first to hold a government position as General Secretary of the Ministry of Health in a PASOK government in the mid ’90s. In June 2011 he was expelled from PASOK after voting against the midterm austerity program and later joined SYRIZA. He has been honored several times for his social achievements in Greece and abroad.