Greek legislative election, 1951

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The Greek legislative election of the 9 September 1951 resulted in an ambivalent outcome, consisting a narrow and pyrrhic, as proven later, victory for the ruling center-liberal parties of Sophoklis Venizelos and Nikolaos Plastiras.

[edit] Background

After the Greek elections of 1950, when the divided centrist parties had a clear majority in the Parliament political instability was the main characteristic of the political life in Greece. The subsequent centre-liberal governments of Sophoklis Venizelos, Nikolaos Plastiras and Georgios Papandreou did not manage to ensure and enforce stability. As a result, Nikolaos Plastiras supported a People's Party government, under the term that the latter would cinduct soon elections.

[edit] Outcome

First party in the elections of 1951 was the just-founded Greek Rally of Alexandros Papagos, which swept the traditionally dominant right-wing People's Party. Nevertheless, the two major centrist-liberal parties, the Liberal Party and the National Progressive Center Union, elected more deputies than the conservatives.

The left-wing EDA, a party believed to have been affiliated with the outlaw during 1950-1974 KKE, made its first appearance in these elections.

Summary of the 9 September 1951 Greek Parliament election resultsedit			Votes			Seats
			No.	%	+− %	No.	+−
	People's Party	Konstantinos Tsaldaris		6.66		2
	Greek Rally	Alexandros Papagos		36.53		114
	Liberal Party	Sophoklis Venizelos		19.04		57
	Democratic Socialist Party	Georgios Papandreou		2.10		-
	Rally of the Farmers and the Workers			1.23		1
	National Progressive Center Union	Nikolaos Plastiras		23.49		74
	Socialist Party (ΕDD)			0.23		-
	United Democratic Left (ΕDΑ)	Dimitrios Pasalidis		10.57		10
	Socialists-Marxists			0.00		-
	Lists of Independents			0.09		-
	Others			0.06		-
Totals				100.00
Constituencies				41		258(250+8)
Valid votes			1,708,904
Invalid votes			8,108	(0.47%)
Total number of votes			1,717,012	(77,11%)
Valid electorate			2,224,246
Population			7,395,219
Sources: Texts of Constitutional History, vol. 2, p. 835. Encyclopedia Dictionary "The Sun", Volume 15, Article: Nikolaos Plastiras

[edit] Post-election

Since no party or alliance had the absolute majority in the Parliament and Alexandros Papagos refused to participate in a government of national unity, the Liberal Party and the National Progressive Center Union formed a minority government under the leadership of Nikolaos Plastiras, which lasted for about a year, since 1952, when Nikolaos Plastiras submitted his resignation and new legislative elections were proclaimed by the King Paul I.

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