1981 Greek legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 18 October 1981.[1] The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), led by Andreas Papandreou, faced New Democracy, led by Georgios Rallis. Papandreou achieved a landslide and PASOK formed the first socialist government in the history of Greece (in 1963 Centrists had formed a government under the leadership of George Papandreou, Andreas' father, but their party, Center Union, was not a socialist party but a centrist, social-liberal one).

1981 Greek legislative election

18 October 1981

All 300 seats to the Greek Parliament
151 seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Andreas Papandreou Georgios Rallis Charilaos Florakis
Party PASOK ND KKE
Leader since 3 September 1974 1980 1974
Last election 93 seats, 25.34% 171 seats, 41.84% 11 seats, 9.36%
Seats won 172 115 13
Seat change 79 56 2
Popular vote 2,726,309 2,034,496 620,302
Percentage 48.07% 35.87% 10.93%
Swing 22.73% 5.97% 1.57%

Prime Minister before election

Georgios Rallis
ND

Subsequent Prime Minister

Andreas Papandreou
PASOK

Distribution of parliament seats after the 1981 elections.
  New Democracy: 115 seats

185 of the 300 seats were won by PASOK or the Communist Party: both openly eurosceptic. This was the high point of Greek euroscepticism, coming just months after the country's accession to the European Communities.[2]

Results

Party Votes % Seats +/–
Panhellenic Socialist Movement2,726,30948.1172+79
New Democracy2,034,49635.9115–56
Communist Party of Greece620,30210.913+2
Progressive Party95,7991.70New
Communist Party of Greece (Interior)76,4041.30New
KODISO-KAE40,1260.70New
Union of the Democratic Centre22,7630.40–16
Liberal Party20,6450.40New
Christian Democracy8,6380.20New
For a Revolutionary Left6,5950.10New
EKKE-M-L KKE4,7000.100
EDE-Trotskyists1,6460.000
Democratic Social Party1,1000.00New
Byzantine National Organisation4070.00New
Olympic Democracy950.000
Hellenic Universal Olympic Democracy50.00New
National Refugee Party of Greece "Kimon"20.00New
Independents11,0250.200
Invalid/blank votes82,421
Total5,753,4841003000
Registered voters/turnout7,059,77881.5
Source: Nohlen & Stöver
Popular vote
PASOK
48.06%
ND
35.88%
KKE
10.93%
KP
1.69%
KKE-ES
1.37%
Others
2.09%
Parliament seats
PASOK
57.33%
ND
38.33%
KKE
4.33%

Aftermath

Papandreou's new government introduced several interesting reforms in the wake of its victory (legalization of civil wedding, new family law, nationalization of certain private companies, etc.).

The main opposition party, New Democracy, faced serious internal conflicts. Georgios Rallis was forced to resign after the defeat and he was succeeded by Evangelos Averoff, former minister under Karamanlis governments. In 1984 Averof resigned because of health problems and Konstantinos Mitsotakis became the new leader of New Democracy. Noteworthy, Mitsotakis and Papandreou were both centrists before 1967 and they belonged to the same party, George Papandreou's Center Union. Nevertheless, they were strong opponents and they never liked each other. Papandreou was calling Mitsotakis "a defector, an apostate", because in 1965 he defected from the ruling Center Union and participated in a new government pleasing to Constantine II, who had just accepted George Papandreou's resignation after a serious disagreement between the King and the prime minister.

References

  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p830 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Verney, Susannah (March 2011). "An exceptional case? Party and popular Euroscepticism in Greece, 1959–2009". South European Society and Politics. 16 (1): 51–79. doi:10.1080/13608746.2010.538960. S2CID 154573367.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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