Greek legislative election, 1946

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 31 March 1946.^[1] The result was a victory for the United Order of Patriot-Thinkers, an alliance of the People's Party, the National Liberal Party, the Reform Party and some other parties an independents,^[2] which won 206 of the 354 seats in Parliament.^[3] As a resultKonstantinos Tsaldaris became Prime Minister leading a right-wing coalition. Nonetheless, he soon decided to resign in favor of Themistoklis Sophoulis, who led a government of national unity (conservative and centre-liberal forces) during the entire second phase of the civil war (1946-1949). One of the priorities of the new government was the proclamation of a plebiscite for the restoration of the Greek monarchy.

The elections were marked by some voters abstaining due to the Communist Party of Greece boycotting the election and the effects of the civil war (1943-1944, 1946-1949), because of which many citizens either could not or chose not to vote. One of the reasons for the defeat of the centre-liberal parties was the division of the Liberal Party, founded by Eleftherios Venizelos. One faction remained loyal to the leadership of Themistoklis Sophoulis, while another faction followed Sophoklis Venizelos, who formed a coalition with Georgios Papandreou and Panayiotis Kanellopoulos.

Results

^a Within the United Order the People's Party won 156 seats, the National Liberal Party 34, the Reform Party five and others 11.

^b Within the Union the Party of Venizelian Liberals won 31 seats, the National Unionist Party 27, the Democratic Socialist Party 7 seats and others three.

References