Nikolaos Plastiras - Political Career

Political Career

The Republic that he had helped found proved an unstable one. Coups, counter-coups, the conflict between Venizelists/Republicans and Royalists, and constant economic problems plagued Greece. Plastiras, persecuted during the Pangalos dictatorship, attempted to lead a coup in March 1933, after the anti-Venizelists won the elections, but facing universal reaction (even from Venizelos himself), he was forced to flee abroad. Finally, after the failed Venizelist revolt of 1935, although still abroad, he was condemned in absentia to death. Nonetheless he maintained a high prestige as a war hero and because of his integrity and staunch Republicanism. From his French exile, he watched the Germans overrun Greece, and played a role in the creation of the EDES resistance group, whose titular leadership he had.

He returned to Greece in 1945, after his selection as prime minister following the December events of 1944, primarily because he was a commonly accepted personality. Plastiras attempted to tread a middle path between the British, who were supporting the returned government-in-exile and the return of King George II, and the democratic-leftist guerilla of the EAM/ELAS. During his premiership, the Varkiza Agreement was signed. His moderate policies and republican sympathies earned the distrust of the British, and he was dismissed after only three months in office.

In 1949, after the end of the Greek Civil War, Plastiras founded a new party, the National Progressive Centre Union (Εθνική Προοδευτική Ένωση Κέντρου, EPEK), forming a following of disappointed Liberals and left-leaning democrats. He preached a message of national reconciliation, which put him in conflict with the conservative establishment which sought to punish those who had fought to establish a communist government. Together with Sofoklis Venizelos and George Papandreou, Plastiras formed a coalition government in 1950, which fell, however, when his partners retired. In the September 1951 elections, EPEK emerged as the strongest of the centrist parties. Plastiras formed a coalition government with Sofoklis Venizelos' Liberals, and attempted to address the great problems of the country. His government initiated the economic recovery and the reconstruction of Greece. A monument to this is the construction of the dam at the Tavropos (Megdovas) River to form a lake, a program that he initiated. The lake and dam, both formerly named Tavropos, now bear his name. His policy of conciliation, however, was bitterly assailed from the right, distrusted from the left, and undermined even by members of his own cabinet. A defining moment of his failure was the conviction and execution of Nikos Belogiannis in March 1952. After losing the elections of November 1952, his political career, and with it the liberal 'Centrist Intermission', came to an end. He died in poverty in 1953 in Athens.