New Democracy (Greece)

New Democracy (ND, Greek: Νέα Δημοκρατία, Néa Dimokratía), founded in 1974, is the main center-right political party in Greece. After an initial period of success, ND spent most of the 1980s and 1990s in opposition. At the 4 March, 2004 Greek elections, ND returned to office under the leadership of Kostas Karamanlis, nephew of the party's founder.

History

ND was founded on October 4 1974, two months after Constantine Karamanlis was sworn in as the first Prime Minister in the post-dictatorship era in Greece. 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 which had ruled Greece before the 1967 military coup, including his own ERE (Ethniki Rizospastiki Enosis = National Radical Union). 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, despite the fact that 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: Tzanis 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 April 10 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 March 7, 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).

2007 re-election

On September 16, 2007, Kostas Karamanlis won re-election with a diminished majority in parliament, and stated:"Thank you for your trust. You have spoken loud and clear and chosen the course the country will take in the next few years." George Papandreou, main opposition socialist party PASOK, accepted defeat (New Democracy party with 41.84%, and opposition party PASOK had 38.1%).

Election results, parliamentary elections 1974-2007

Year	Party Leader	Number of votes	Percentage of votes	Number of members in the Hellenic Parliament	Position in Parliament
1974	Constantine Karamanlis	2,669,133	54.4%	220	Government
1977	Constantine Karamanlis	2,146,365	41.8%	171	Government
1981	George Rallis	2,034,496	35.9%	115	Main opposition party
1985	Constantine Mitsotakis	2,599,681	40.8%	126	Main opposition party
1989-I	Constantine Mitsotakis	2,887,488	44.3%	145	In coalition government with SYN
1989-II	Constantine Mitsotakis	3,093,479	46.2%	148	Part of an all-party coalition government
1990	Constantine Mitsotakis	3,088,137	46.9%	150	Government
1993	Constantine Mitsotakis	2,711,241	39.3%	111	Main opposition party
1996	Miltiadis Evert	2,584,765	38.1%	108	Main opposition party
2000	Kostas Karamanlis	2,935,242	42.7%	126	Main opposition party
2004	Kostas Karamanlis	3,359,058	45.4%	165	Government
2007	Kostas Karamanlis	2,995,479	41.83%	152	Government

External links

• New Democracy website (English)
• Greek election results, via the Greek Ministry of Internal Affairs (Greek)
• European People's Party official site