New Democracy is a liberal-conservative political party in Greece. In contemporary Greek politics, New Democracy has been the main centre-right to right wing political party and one of the two major parties along with its historic rival, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). New Democracy and PASOK were created in the wake of the toppling of the military junta in 1974, ruling Greece in succession for the next four decades. Following the electoral decline of PASOK in 2012 elections, New Democracy remained one of the two major parties in Greece, the other being the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) (until 2023). The party was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and in the same year it formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic. New Democracy is a member of the European People's Party, the largest European political party since 1999, the Centrist Democrat International, and the International Democracy Union.
The support of New Democracy comes from a wide electorate base ranging from centrists to conservatives and from nationalists to post-modernists. From a geographical perspective, its main nonvolatile support base is in the southern Peloponnese, Eastern Attica, Northern Athens and Chios. Its support is generally weaker in Epirus and Western Greece such as Arta, Achaia, Ioannina, the city of Thessaloniki and Crete. Traditionally, New Democracy received the greatest percentages in Laconia, Messenia, Kastoria and Serres. Having spent four and a half years in opposition to SYRIZA's government, New Democracy regained its majority in the Hellenic Parliament and returned to government under Kyriakos Mitsotakis after the 2019 Greek legislative election. The party secured another absolute majority in Parliament in the June 2023 Greek legislative election.
The party has garnered acclaim for its strides in economic development since 2019, notably emphasizing digitization and post-crisis recovery economics, after delivering economic growth. New Democracy has received accolades for its commitment to liberal reforms and a robust emphasis on pro-Europeanism, successfully securing funds from the European Union to fuel domestic development initiatives. Furthermore, commendation has been extended to the party for effectively reducing both overall unemployment and youth unemployment in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
New Democracy has also faced criticism for its role in the fiscal crisis that engulfed Greece in the late 2000s to the 2010s, as well as its financial management during the 2000s. Numerous academic scholars have highlighted the party's penchant for lacking transparency concerning financial data and resource utilization, which has raised concerns about their accountability as a political entity within the country. Moreover, New Democracy has come under fire for its substantial debt to Greek banks, amounting to 435 million euros as of 2023.
History
Foundation
New Democracy traces its roots to the People's Party and the National Radical Union (ERE). New Democracy was founded on 4 October 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis, at the beginning of the metapolitefsi era following the fall of the Greek junta. Karamanlis, who had already served as Prime Minister of Greece from 1955 to 1963, was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of the Third Hellenic Republic in a national unity government on 24 July 1974, until the first free elections of the new era. He intended New Democracy to be a more modern and progressive political party than the right-wing parties that ruled Greece before the 1967 Greek coup d'état. The party's ideology was defined as "radical liberalism", a term defined as "the prevalence of free market rules with the decisive intervention of the state in favour of social justice."
First government (1974–1981) In the 1974 legislative election, New Democracy obtained a massive parliamentary majority of 220 seats with a record 54.37% of the vote, a result attributed to the personal appeal of Karamanlis to the electorate. Karamanlis was elected as prime minister and soon decided to hold a referendum on 8 December 1974 for the issue of the form of government; with a large majority of 69.17%, monarchy was eventually abolished in favour of a republic. The next major issue for the New Democracy cabinet was the creation of the Constitution of Greece, which entered into force in 1975 and established Greece as a parliamentary republic. On 12 June 1975, Greece applied to join the European Communities, of which it was already an associate member since 1961, while it had already been readmitted to the Council of Europe on 28 November 1974.
In the 1977 election, New Democracy won again a large parliamentary majority of 171 seats, albeit with a reduced percentage of popular vote (41.84%). Under Karamanlis, Greece redefined its relations with NATO and tried to resolve the Cyprus problem following the Turkish invasion of the island. In 1979, the first conference of the party was held in Chalkidiki, where its ideological principles defined under the term "radical liberalism" were unanimously approved, as well as its statute and the operating regulations of its organizations. It was the first conference of any Greek political party whose delegates were elected by the members.
Karamanlis' vision concerning the accession of Greece into the European Communities, despite the resolute opposition of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), led to the signing of the Treaty of Accession on 28 May 1979 in Athens; following the ratification of the act by the Hellenic Parliament on 28 June 1979, Greece became the tenth member state of the European Communities on 1 January 1981. Karamanlis was criticised by opposing parties for not holding a referendum, even though Greece's accession into the European Communities had been in the forefront of New Democracy's political platform, under which the party had been elected to power.
Under Karamanlis, the government nationalized several privately owned conglomerates and infrastructure monopolies, including Olympic Airways and the Commercial Bank of Greece (Emporiki). The government was accused by conservative critics and industrialists of "socialmania" (σοσιαλμανία). This strategy led to the expansion of the public sector.
Karamanlis relinquished the premiership in 1980 and was elected as President of Greece by the parliament, serving until 1985. Georgios Rallis was elected as the new leader of New Democracy and succeeded Karamanlis in premiership.
Opposition and Mitsotakis' rise to power (1981–1989) Under the leadership of Georgios Rallis, New Democracy was defeated in the 1981 legislative elections by Andreas Papandreou's PASOK which ran on a left-wing progressive platform, and was placed in opposition for a first time with 35.87% share of the vote and 115 seats. On the same day, on 18 October 1981, New Democracy was also defeated in the first Greek election to the European Parliament. In the following December, the party's parliamentary group elected Evangelos Averoff, former Minister for National Defence, as president of New Democracy. Averoff made a turn to the hardline right. He opposed the official recognition of the communist resistance groups in the Greek Resistance by the Papandreou government and promised he would overturn it. Following the 1984 European Parliament election, he resigned citing health reasons and was subsequently declared an Honorary President. On 1 September 1984, Konstantinos Mitsotakis succeeded him in the party's presidency. Mitsotakis embraced economic liberalism and fiscal conservatism, taking inspiration from Reagan and Thatcher, and campaigned on reducing government intervention in the economy. He managed to increase New Democracy's percentage in the 1985 elections to 40.85%, although it was defeated again and remained in opposition.
Second government (1989–1993)
Mitsotakis led New Democracy to a clear win in the June 1989 legislative elections registering 44.28% of the vote but, due to the modification of the electoral law by the outbound PASOK government, New Democracy obtained only 145 seats which were not enough to form a government on its own. The aftermath was the formation of a coalition government under Tzannis Tzannetakis, consisted of New Democracy and Coalition of the Left and Progress (Synaspismos), with the latter also including at the time the Communist Party of Greece. In the subsequent elections of November 1989, New Democracy took one more comfortable win, increasing its share to 46.19% of the vote and 148 seats but, under the same electoral law, they were still short of forming a government and this led to a national unity government along with PASOK and Synaspismos, under Xenophon Zolotas.
Eventually, in the 1990 election Mitsotakis' New Democracy defeated once again Papandreou's PASOK with a lead of 8.28%, but this time the 46.89% of votes awarded them with 150 seats, which allowed Mitsotakis to form a majority in the parliament with the support of Democratic Renewal's (DIANA) sole member of parliament and one more seat given by the Supreme Special Court, after a mistake in seat calculation was detected. After three consecutive wide wins with high vote percentages, Mitsotakis became the 178th Prime Minister of Greece and the 7th Prime Minister of the 3rd Hellenic Republic though with a slim parliamentary majority of 152 seats due to the electoral law in force at the time.
In a turbulent international political environment following the 1989 Fall of Communism in Europe, Mitsotakis' government focused on cutting government spending, the privatization of state enterprises, the reformation of the public administration, and the restoration of the original electoral system, with the addition of an election threshold of 3%. More specifically, his government repealed the wage price index, which kept people's incomes high while fueling inflation: a popular PASOK law since 1982, when it was first introduced. Mitsotakis' government sold or liquidated 44 companies controlled by the "Industrial Reconstruction Organisation," which was created by PASOK and was designed to assist failed firms in recovery. Certain areas, such as banking, were deregulated to attract capital. While the Greek economy started to recover towards meeting the Euro convergence criteria, austerity policies caused significant frustration among the Greek voters.
In foreign policy, the priorities were the restoration of confidence among Greece's economic and political partners, NATO, and the United States. Mitsotakis initiated efforts designed to improve relations with the US, which Papandreou's anti-American rhetoric had damaged. In July 1990, a defense cooperation agreement was signed regarding the operation of American bases in Greece for the next eight years. Mitsotakis took the initiative for Greece to formally recognize the State of Israel, making it the last EEC member to do so. Mitsotakis also supported a new dialogue with Turkey on the Cyprus dispute and a compromise over the Macedonia naming dispute; the latter triggered an irritation among the MPs of New Democracy, which led Antonis Samaras to leave it and form a new political party in June 1993, Political Spring; one more withdrawal later from its parliamentary group resulted in New Democracy's loss of the majority in the parliament and the call of early elections.
Opposition (1993–2004)