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Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 17 November 1974. They were the first after the end of the military junta of 1967–1974, and took place during the metapolitefsi era. The winner was Konstantinos Karamanlis and his newly formed conservative party, New Democracy. Karamanlis had already formed a government of national unity just after the fall of the dictatorship. The second-largest party was the centrist Center Union – New Forces. The third party in the Parliament became the newly formed PASOK, a radical socialist party led by Andreas Papandreou, son of the former Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou.
Electoral system
The members of the Hellenic Parliament were elected via open list proportional representation in 56 multi-member constituencies using the Hagenbach-Bischoff system.
Additionally, 5% of seats (in this case, 12) were reserved for "state deputies" nominated by the parties, who neither belonged to a particular constituency nor competed for election. These seats were allocated proportionally between the parties.
Results
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
| New Democracy | 2,669,133 | 54.37 | 220 | |
| Centre Union – New Forces | 1,002,559 | 20.42 | 60 | |
| PASOK | 666,413 | 13.58 | 12 | |
| United Left | 464,787 | 9.47 | 8 | |
| National Democratic Union | 52,768 | 1.07 | 0 | |
| Democratic Centre Union | 8,509 | 0.17 | 0 | |
| Revolutionary Communist Movement | 1,539 | 0.03 | 0 | |
| Liberal Democratic Union–Socialist Party | 975 | 0.02 | 0 | |
| Independents | 42,291 | 0.86 | 0 | |
| Total | 4,908,974 | 100.00 | 300 | |
| Valid votes | 4,908,974 | 98.90 | ||
| Invalid/blank votes | 54,584 | 1.10 | ||
| Total votes | 4,963,558 | 100.00 | ||
| Registered voters/turnout | 6,241,066 | 79.53 | ||
| Source: Nohlen & Stöver | ||||
Aftermath
These were the priorities of the Karamanlis's government:
- The adoption of a new constitution
- The abolition of the monarchy after a free referendum
- The submission of a new application for Greece to join the European Community.
The new government decided on a referendum on retaining the republic, which was held on 8 December 1974.
In 1975 Konstantinos Tsatsos, a close friend of Karamanlis, was elected President of the Republic by parliament.
References
- Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p830 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
Further reading
- Tridimas, George (2010). "Referendum and the choice between monarchy and republic in Greece". Constitutional Political Economy. 21 (2): 119–144. doi:10.1007/s10602-009-9078-4. S2CID 154282086.
