Greek legislative election, 1951
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Greece |
 This article is part of the series: |
|
|
|
|
Other countries · Atlas Politics Portal |
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 Communist Party of Greece, 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 Farmers and Workers | 1.23 | 1 | |||||
| National Progressive Center Union | Nikolaos Plastiras | 23.49 | 74 | ||||
| Socialist Party (ΕDD) | 0.23 | - | |||||
| United Democratic Left (ΕDΑ) | Ioannis Passalidis | 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.
|
|||||||||||||||||
