History, Consolidation of Democracy

In elections held in November, Karamanlis’s conservative New Democracy (ND) party secured a clear victory and he retained his position. A subsequent referendum resulted in an unambiguous vote against the restoration of the monarchy, and in June 1975 the parliament approved a republican constitution. The constitution gave extensive powers to the president, although in practice these were not used. That month parliament elected Konstantinos Tsatsos, a Karamanlis ally, to a five-year term as president. In the elections of 1977, Andreas Papandreou’s radical Panhellenic Socialist Movement (known by its Greek acronym, PASOK) emerged as the principal opposition party with a 25 percent share of the vote. In May 1980 Karamanlis was elected president and relinquished his post as prime minister to a less charismatic ND member, Georgios Rallis. As president, Karamanlis achieved one of his long-standing objectives when he helped secure agreement for Greece to enter the European Community (EC; subsequently the European Union, or EU) in 1981.

In elections held in October 1981, Andreas Papandreou’s PASOK party swept to power with 48 percent of the vote, easily defeating Rallis and the ND. Papandreou became Greece’s first socialist prime minister. Once in power, however, Papandreou did not carry out the threats he had made as an opposition leader to withdraw Greece from NATO and the EC. Although his anti-American rhetoric proved popular with Greeks who blamed the United States for its support of the junta, the government agreed to allow U.S. military bases to remain in Greece.

Domestically, the PASOK government instituted sweeping reforms, including legalizing civil marriage and abolishing the dowry system, overhauling the university system to give junior staff and students more power, and introducing a national health service. In March 1985 Papandreou secured the election as president of his chosen candidate, Christos Sartzetakis, a jurist. (Karamanlis had resigned earlier that month, when it was apparent that PASOK deputies would not nominate him for a second term.) Soon afterward, PASOK again won parliamentary elections.

Growing economic problems, coupled with scandals in the government and in Papandreou’s private life, contributed to PASOK losing its parliamentary majority in the elections of June 1989. The conservative ND formed a coalition government with the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), an unprecedented development in Greece. Further elections, held in April 1990, gave a narrow majority to the ND, led by Konstantinos Mitsotakis. The new government was able to use its parliamentary majority to secure the reelection of Karamanlis as president. (Karamanlis’s second term as president ended in 1995.)

In 1993 Papandreou returned to power when PASOK won the majority of seats in new elections. However, in contrast to his first administration, Papandreou introduced few new policies. Illness forced him to resign in January 1996, and he died six months later. His successor, Costas Simitis, who represented the modernizing, technocratic wing of PASOK, was confirmed in office in elections in 1996.