New Democracy (Greece) - History

History

ND was founded on 4 October 1974. Konstantinos Karamanlis was sworn in as the first Prime Minister in two months of the post-dictatorship era. Karamanlis had already served as Prime Minister from 1955 to 1963. In the first free elections of the new era, New Democracy won. This result is attributed mostly to the personal appeal of Karamanlis, rather than the influence of ND as a party, to the electorate. "Karamanlis or tanks" was a slogan at the time, with the latter referring to the military, which, it was feared, might stage another coup.

Karamanlis claimed that he intended New Democracy to be a more modern and progressive right-wing party than those that ruled Greece before the 1967 military coup, including his own National Radical Union (Εθνική Ριζοσπαστικη Ενωση, ERE). The party's ideology was defined as "radical liberalism," a term defined by ND as "the prevalence of free market rules with the decisive intervention of the state in favour of social justice."

In 1977, ND again won national elections, albeit with a largely reduced majority (41.88%). Still, it retained a comfortable parliamentary majority. Under Karamanlis Greece redefined its relations with NATO, and tried to resolve the Cyprus issue following the Turkish invasion. In 1980, however, Karamanlis retired. His successor, George Rallis, was defeated at the following elections by the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) led by Andreas Papandreou. Under ND leadership Greece joined the European Communities in 1981. Karamanlis was criticised by opposing parties (which were against the prospect of entering the EEC), for not holding a referendum, even though entry into the EEC was prominent in the political platform under which New Democracy had been elected to power.

ND returned to power in a coalition government (prime minister: Tzannis Tzannetakis) with the traditional Left Party (Coalition of the Left and Progress, which at the time included the Communist Party of Greece) in 1989, subsequently participated in the grand coalition government of Xenophon Zolotas from November 1989 to April 1990 and, eventually, formed a majority government under Constantine Mitsotakis after new elections were held on 10 April 1990. The party then suffered a period of successive losses. It was defeated by a landslide in 1993 under Mitsotakis, in 1996 under Miltiadis Evert, and in 2000 under Kostas Karamanlis, nephew of the party's founder. In 2000 ND lost by 1,06% of the popular vote, the smallest margin in modern Greek history.

By 2003, however, ND was consistently leading the PASOK government of Costas Simitis in opinion polls. In January 2004 Simitis resigned and announced elections for 7 March, at which Karamanlis faced the new PASOK leader, George Papandreou. Despite speculation that Papandreou would succeed in restoring PASOK's fortunes, Karamanlis had a victory in the elections and became Greece's first center-right Prime Minister after eleven years.

ND is a member of the European People's Party (EPP), the International Democrat Union (IDU) and the Christian Democrat International (CDI).