Andreas Papandreou - Political Career

Political Career

Papandreou returned to Greece in 1959, where he headed an economic development research program, by invitation of Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis. In 1960, he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of the Athens Economic Research Center, and Advisor to the Bank of Greece. In 1963, his father George Papandreou, head of the Center Union, became Prime Minister of Greece. Andreas became his chief economic advisor. He renounced his American citizenship and was elected to the Greek Parliament in the Greek legislative election, 1964. He immediately became Minister to the First Ministry of State (in effect, assistant Prime Minister).

Papandreou took publicly a neutral stand on the Cold War and wished for Greece to be more independent from the United States. He also criticized the massive presence of American military and intelligence in Greece, and sought to remove senior officers with anti-democratic tendencies from the Greek military.

In 1965, while the "Aspida" conspiracy within the Hellenic Army, alleged by the political opposition to involve Andreas personally, was being investigated, George Papandreou moved to fire the defense minister and assume the post himself. Constantine II of Greece refused to endorse this move and essentially forced George Papandreou's resignation. Greece entered a period of political polarisation and instability, which ended with the coup d'état of 21 April 1967.

When the Greek Colonels led by Georgios Papadopoulos seized power in April 1967, Andreas was incarcerated. Gust Avrakotos, a high ranking CIA officer in Greece who was close with the colonels who lead the coup, advised them to "shoot the motherfucker because he's going to come back to haunt you". His father George Papandreou was put under house arrest. George, already at advanced age, died in 1968. Under heavy pressure from American academics and intellectuals, such as John Kenneth Galbraith, a friend of Andreas since their Harvard days, the military regime released Andreas on condition that he leave the country. Papandreou then moved to Sweden with his wife, four children, and mother. There he accepted a post at Stockholm University. In Paris, while in exile, Andreas Papandreou formed an anti-dictatorship organization, the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), and toured the world rallying opposition to the Greek military regime. Despite his former American citizenship and academic career in the United States, Papandreou held the Central Intelligence Agency responsible for the 1967 coup and became increasingly critical of the Federal government of the United States.

In the early 1970s, during the latter phase of the dictatorship in Greece, Papandreou, along with most leading Greek politicians, in exile or in Greece, opposed the process of political normalisation attempted by Georgios Papadopoulos and his appointed PM, Spyros Markezinis. On 6 August 1974, Andreas Papandreou called an extraordinary meeting of the National Congress of PAK in Winterthur, Switzerland, which decided its dissolution without announcing it publicly.

Papandreou returned to Greece after the fall of the junta in 1974, during metapolitefsi, and formed a new "radical" party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK. Most of his former PAK companions, as well as members of other anti-dictatorial groups such as the Democratic Defense joined in the new party. He also testified in the first of the Greek Junta Trials about the alleged involvement of the junta with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In the Greek legislative election, 1974, PASOK received only 13.5% of the vote, but in 1977 it polled 25%, and Papandreou became Leader of the Opposition. At the Greek legislative election, 1981, PASOK won a landslide victory over the conservative New Democracy Party, and Papandreou became Greece's first socialist Prime Minister.

In office, Papandreou backtracked from much of his campaign rhetoric and followed a more conventional approach. Greece did not withdraw from NATO, United States troops and military bases were not ordered out of Greece, and Greek membership in the European Economic Community continued, largely because Papandreou proved very capable of securing monetary aid for Greece. In domestic affairs, Papandreou's government immediately carried out a massive programme of wealth redistribution upon coming into office that immediately increased the prosperity of the common people. Pensions, together with average wages and the minimum wage, were increased in real terms, and changes were made to labour laws which up until 1984 made it difficult for employers to make workers redundant. The impact of the PASOK Government’s social and economic policies was such that it was estimated in 1988 that two-thirds of the decrease in inequality that occurred in Greece between 1974 and 1982 took place between 1981 and 1982.

During its time in office, Papandreou's government carried through sweeping reforms of social policy by introducing a welfare state, significantly expanding welfare measures, expanding health care coverage (the "National Health System" was instituted, which made modern medical procedures available in rural areas for the first time,) promoting state-subsidized tourism for lower-income families, index-linking pensions, and funding social establishments for the elderly. Rural areas benefited from improved state services, the rights and income of low paid workers were considerably improved, and refugees from the Civil War living in exile from persecution were allowed to return with impunity.

A more progressive taxation scheme was introduced and budgetary support for artistic and cultural programmes was increased. The government also introduced a wage indexation system which helped to close the gap modestly between the highest and lowest paid workers, while the share of GNP devoted to social welfare, social insurance, and health was significantly increased.

As part of Papandreou’s "Contract with the People," new liberalising laws were introduced which decriminalised adultery, abolished (in theory) the dowry system, eased the process for obtaining a divorce, and enhanced the legal status of women. In 1984, for instance, women were guaranteed equal pay for equal work. Papandreou also introduced various reforms in the administration and curriculum of the Greek educational system, allowing students to participate in the election process for their professors and deans in the university, and abolishing tenure.

In a move strongly opposed by the Church of Greece, Papandreou introduced, for the first time in Greece, the process of civil marriage. Prior to the institution of civil marriages in Greece, the only legally recognized marriages were those conducted in the Church of Greece. Couples seeking a civil marriage had to get married outside Greece, generally in Italy. Also, under PASOK, the Greek State also appropriated real estate properties previously owned by the Church.

A major part of Papandreou's allagi (change) involved driving out the "old families" ("tzakia" literally: fireplaces using the traditional Greek expression for the genealogy of families), which dominated Greek politics and economy and belonged to the traditional Greek Right.

Papandreou was comfortably re-elected in the Greek legislative election, 1985 with 46% of the vote, and won still further popularity in March 1987 by his strong leadership during a Greek-Turkish crisis in the Aegean Sea, but from the summer of 1988, his premiership became increasingly clouded by controversy, as the Bank of Crete scandal exploded. In 1989, he divorced his wife Margaret Papandreou and married Dimitra Liani, while in the same year he was indicted by the Hellenic Parliament in connection with a US$200 million Bank of Crete embezzlement scandal, and was accused of facilitating the embezzlement by ordering state corporations to transfer their holdings to the Bank of Crete, where the interest was allegedly skimmed off to benefit PASOK, and possibly some of its highest functionaries.

Following the many repercussions of the so-called Koskotas scandal, the Greek legislative election, June 1989 elections produced a deadlock, leading to a prolonged political crisis. In the subsequent Greek legislative election, November 1989 Papandreou's PASOK's won 40% of the popular vote, compared to the rival New Democracy's 46%, and, due to changes made in electoral law one year before the elections by the then reigning PASOK administration, New Democracy was not able to form a government. The Greek legislative election, 1990 followed.

In the wake of three consecutive elections between 1989 and 1990, the New Democracy leader, Constantine Mitsotakis, eventually received sufficient support to form a government. In January 1992, Papandreou himself was cleared of any wrongdoing in the Koskotas scandal after a 7–6 vote in the specially convened High Court trial, ordered by the Hellenic Parliament, with the support of both main parties, New Democracy and PASOK.

Papandreou confounded his critics by winning the Greek legislative election, 1993, and returned to power; however, his fragile health kept him from exercising firm political leadership. He was hospitalized with advanced heart disease and renal failure on 21 November 1995 and finally retired from office on 16 January 1996. He died on 23 June 1996, with his funeral procession producing crowds, ranging from "hundreds of thousands" to "millions" to bid farewell to Andreas. In 1999, Papandreou was posthumously awarded the Swedish Order of the Polar Star.