Charilaos Trikoupis - "Who's To Blame?"

"Who's To Blame?"

In 1872 he created his own party, called the Fifth Party (Πέμπτο Κόμμα) on a reformist agenda. On June 29, 1874 (Julian calendar) he published a manifesto in the Athens daily Kairoi entitled "Who's to blame?" (Τις Πταίει;), naming the King as the answer. Specifically, he condemned the king for bypassing public opinion expressed in elections in his selection of Prime Ministers. Trikoupis wrote that the political instability, which characterized the public life was due to the privilege of the crown as far as the appointment and ousting of governments was concerned. This privilege may have derived from the Greek Constitution of 1864, but it resulted in the formation of weak minority governments based exclusively on the royal favor.

Moreover, it underlined that if "a remedy is not applied", the country will revolt. In order to prevent this, the writer suggested the restriction of the royal privileges with the introduction of the principle of the "declared confidence" which, as he supported, would bring about the harmonization of the political life via the formation of a basically two-party parliamentary system: "When it (the kingship) sincerely decides to accept that it invites to power only the majority, there is doubt that in Greece, as elsewhere, this enviable honour will not remain exposed for long. Therefore, it is not the fault of the regime, it is not the fault of the representatives of the Nation, it is not the fault of the Nation, if the Parliament is divided in many parties and has not the majority when demanded… The vice lies elsewhere and it is there that a remedy should be sought".

The article landed him briefly in jail but also boosted his popularity significantly. A year later, on May 8, 1875 he mustered a parliamentary plurality and King George I reluctantly named him as Prime Minister as the leader of a new Reformist party called the New (or Modernist) Party (Νεωτεριστικόν Κομμα).