Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 2 June 1985. The governing political party, PASOK of Andreas Papandreou, was re-elected, defeating the liberal conservative New Democracy party of Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

The election campaign was dominated by the ongoing constitutional crisis initiated by Papandreou in March 1985 to advance his preferred candidate, Christos Sartzetakis, for the president of Greece. At the same time, he proposed constitutional revisions to remove the presidential powers that were acting as checks and balances on Papandreou's position. The presidential vote took place amid intense political tension and accusations of constitutional violations, ending with Sartzetakis becoming president. Mitsotakis, as leader of the opposition, denounced the presidential election as illegal and vowed to remove Sartzetakis if his party won, deepening the constitutional crisis.

The confrontation at the presidential election carried over to the parliamentary election campaigns, which polarized Greek society. On one side, Papandreou invoked memories of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949) and Junta (1967–1974), associating New Democracy with the authoritarian Right of the past, while on the other side, Mitsotakis warned the public of Papandreou's totalitarian designs. However, Sartzetakis' election ultimately benefited Papandreou and his party, securing victory in the general elections by consolidating support from the Left, even as they lost ground in the Center amid Greece's worsening economy under his leadership.

After the election, all political parties accepted Sartzetakis as president, ending the constitutional crisis, despite a later court ruling designating the election of Sartzetakis as unconstitutional. The constitutional amendments that came into effect in 1986 substantially strengthened Papandreou's executive authority. However, the monopoly of power and dominance of Papandreou caused strategic reevaluation and alignment in the New Democracy and communist parties, Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and KKE-Interior, leading to Papandreou losing the premiership in 1989.

Background on the constitutional crisis

In 1985, Papandreou provoked a constitutional crisis by denying Konstantinos Karamanlis a second presidential term and supporting Supreme Court justice Christos Sartzetakis instead. His choice sparked further controversy, as it was tied to proposals of constitutional reforms aimed at increasing the power of his position by weakening the presidential powers, which had served as checks and balances on the executive branch led by the prime minister. The election of the new president took place in March 1985 under a tense and confrontational atmosphere due to Papandreou's dubious constitutional procedures. The leader of the opposition, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, denounced the vote as illegal and vowed that if New Democracy won the elections, Sartzetakis would not be president by bringing the legality of the process to the Council of State (), further deepening the constitutional crisis.

Scholars argued that the crisis was motivated by Papandreou's desire to divert the Greek electorate's attention away from the worsening state of the Greek economy (unemployment increased under PASOK from 2.7% in 1980 to 7.8% in 1985, annual inflation of the order of 20%, and widening trade deficits). According to a public opinion survey by Eurobarometer, the number of Greeks who believed that the economic situation worsened increased from 37.7% in 1983 to 70.2% in 1985, while those who believed that it improved fell from 31.5% to 12.8% in the same period.

Election campaigns

Both parties continued their confrontations over the constitutional crisis in their election campaigns, where the political polarization reached new heights. Mitsotakis declared, "In voting, the Greek people will also be voting for a president" and also warned that there is a danger of sliding towards an authoritarian one-party state. The president's office responded, "The president of the republic will remain the vigilant guardian of the constitution." From PASOK, Agamemnon Koutsogiorgas described what was at stake not as "oranges and tomatoes but the confrontation between two worlds." Papandreou followed this by characterizing the upcoming elections as a fight between light and darkness in his rallies, implying that PASOK represented the "forces of light" since its logo was a rising sun. Papandreou further argued that every vote against PASOK was a vote for the return of the Right, associating the Right of the mid-1980s with the authoritarian and pro-monarchy elements of the Right in the pre-1974 era, with the slogan "Vote PASOK to prevent a return of the Right." The communists, persecuted by the Right in the 1950s, protested against Papandreou's dwelling on the past, pointing out that the 1980s were not the same as the 1950s. The Economist magazine described Greece as a "country divided," tearing itself apart and opening the wounds of the Greek Civil War.

Two days before the 2 June elections, Karamanlis broke his silence and urged Greeks to be cautious in their voting (without explicitly advising whom to vote for), commenting that PASOK had brought "confusion and uncertainty." However, Karamanlis' statement was not broadcast on TV and radio, which were controlled by the governing party, i.e., PASOK.

Electoral system Since the establishment of the Third Hellenic Republic, Greece conducted parliamentary elections under successive iterations of a system known as "reinforced proportional representation", which was engineered to produce stable single-party majorities in the 300-seat Hellenic Parliament. The framework distributed parliamentary seats through a multi-tiered mechanism involving primary constituency rounds and subsequent distributions. In the initial round, seats were assigned locally using an electoral quota, leaving unallocated residual seats. Access to these remaining seats in higher-tier distributions was restricted to political parties that exceeded national vote thresholds, disproportionately reallocating unassigned seats to the leading party. This multi-step mechanism was modified in February 1985 ahead of the 1985 elections through Law 1516/1985. The law, while it removed the vote thresholds, recalibrated the distribution of seats to favor the leading party at the expense of the second and provide a minor boost to third parties.

Results

In the event, PASOK was re-elected with 45.82% of the vote, losing approximately 2.3% from 1981, while New Democracy increased its share of the vote by 4.98% to 40.84%. Papandreou's gamble worked to his benefit because he gained from far-left voting blocs covering the losses from the centrist voters, and appealed to socialist voters who rejected Karamanlis' perceived hindrance of PASOK's policies.

Papandreou had the upper hand over Mitsotakis because he argued that a vote for Mitsotakis was a vote for a constitutional anomaly, convincing a significant fraction of Greek voters. Historian Richard Clogg argued that the large-scale rally by Mitsotakis on the Thursday prior to the 2 June election at Syntagma Square may have panicked communists into voting for PASOK; the communist parties lost a significant share of the vote.

Results by constituency The parliamentary results by constituency are presented in the table below.

ConstituencyPASOKNDKKEKKE-IN%±%±%±%± Achaea 52.53 3.39 36.14 5.52 8.84 0.35 1.42 0.38 Aetolia-Akarnania 46.27 2.06 41.67 1.77 9.90 0.59 1.11 0.46 Argolis 43.50 1.03 48.86 2.03 5.12 0.17 1.05 0.36 Arkadia 44.85 0.06 45.13 2.23 7.37 0.08 1.28 0.51 Arta 41.82 0.59 45.93 0.59 9.91 0.65 1.26 0.50 Athens A 39.76 4.68 44.05 9.63 10.64 1.99 4.37 1.11 Athens B 44.99 3.74 34.79 8.43 15.51 2.53 3.56 0.81 Attica 43.54 6.04 44.10 9.25 9.66 1.07 1.49 0.62 Boeotia 47.60 5.26 40.01 4.96 9.26 0.10 1.71 0.64 Kephalonia 44.07 1.51 37.33 4.37 15.63 1.69 1.74 0.53 Chalkidiki 44.70 1.27 47.82 1.97 5.45 0.05 1.01 0.20 Chania 54.96 0.30 31.16 6.05 10.44 1.52 1.29 0.49 Chios 52.33 3.36 39.09 3.59 5.91 0.27 1.65 0.64 Corfu 51.05 0.27 34.66 0.62 11.15 0.47 1.97 0.52 Corinthia 47.34 3.57 45.50 5.19 4.34 0.27 1.40 0.64 Cyclades 48.12 1.10 45.39 0.36 4.31 0.25 1.14 0.47 Dodecanese 56.67 1.52 36.10 5.81 5.08 0.19 1.12 0.32 Drama 47.69 0.78 46.31 2.57 3.71 0.80 0.99 0.25 Elis 50.22 1.98 41.61 1.17 5.99 0.28 1.03 0.51 Euboea 50.31 4.74 40.19 8.12 7.29 0.21 1.07 0.44 Evros 44.56 1.26 47.67 6.82 5.39 0.01 0.94 0.21 Evrytania 49.88 3.28 43.23 2.00 5.08 0.85 0.83 0.47 Florina 42.79 3.28 47.72 0.97 6.88 0.25 0.90 0.27 Grevena 46.55 1.37 39.17 5.00 11.56 0.75 1.26 0.30 Heraklion 64.32 1.58 26.02 6.82 7.38 1.08 1.19 0.35 Imathia 47.82 2.41 40.51 4.45 9.13 1.08 1.28 0.44 Ioannina 44.60 1.21 38.25 1.63 13.92 2.24 1.67 0.54 Karditsa 44.20 0.35 40.89 0.08 12.22 0.08 1.18 0.43 Kastoria 38.95 0.83 53.81 1.45 4.31 0.13 0.99 0.36 Kavala 47.45 1.13 42.79 3.93 7.30 1.51 1.17 0.13 Kilkis 41.90 1.24 46.37 4.52 9.23 1.98 0.98 0.10 Kozani 45.65 0.56 44.28 0.17 7.72 0.26 1.24 0.42 Laconia 34.87 0.55 56.92 3.12 5.46 0.04 1.02 0.44 Larissa 44.00 1.06 39.21 3.01 14.15 1.15 1.42 0.40 Lasithi 61.59 1.65 31.14 1.89 5.93 0.19 0.65 0.23 Lefkada 41.15 1.29 35.53 2.06 19.06 0.02 3.06 0.84 Lesbos 44.48 4.58 30.23 1.16 22.58 3.46 1.62 0.19 Magnesia 45.41 0.98 39.02 3.75 12.96 1.52 1.39 0.16 Messenia 40.86 1.25 48.70 2.90 7.83 0.37 1.12 0.51 Pella 49.13 1.56 43.08 3.66 5.49 0.61 0.93 0.31 Phocis 42.41 3.89 48.11 4.88 6.73 0.19 1.23 0.59 Phthiotis 45.45 2.89 45.06 5.17 6.90 0.54 1.26 0.50 Pieria 46.22 1.84 44.73 3.94 6.62 1.09 0.99 0.21 Piraeus A 44.08 4.09 42.54 8.37 9.55 2.65 2.66 0.74 Piraeus B 49.33 1.83 29.70 6.61 17.13 4.15 2.64 0.55 Preveza 42.96 3.22 42.73 1.60 11.60 1.30 1.22 0.31 Rethymno 57.20 6.05 34.33 9.66 6.03 0.45 0.97 0.38 Rhodope 30.42 20.41 49.92 10.06 2.90 1.21 0.65 0.13 Samos 40.99 7.20 36.20 5.01 19.30 1.82 2.48 0.02 Serres 43.04 2.26 47.75 3.70 6.68 0.86 1.03 0.31 Thesprotia 49.37 6.31 39.11 4.35 8.61 1.34 1.58 0.67 Thessaloniki A 44.67 2.96 41.21 8.39 10.31 2.79 2.66 0.58 Thessaloniki B 44.47 2.28 44.14 5.58 9.14 1.39 1.06 0.23 Trikala 45.31 2.71 38.31 3.27 13.61 0.12 1.04 0.19 Xanthi 32.22 2.62 45.97 9.15 2.35 0.43 0.85 0.12 Zakynthos 43.84 0.72 38.80 1.71 14.97 0.86 1.58 0.18 Source: Ministry of the Interior

Aftermath After the election results, Mitsotakis accepted Sartzetakis as president and the head of state. However, the Athens One-Member Magistrates' Court ruled that the President's election had been "irregular" and "amounted to an abrogation of popular sovereignty". The court further held that the subsequent political legitimacy conferred by PASOK's victory in the 1985 election did not negate the unconstitutional nature of the original act. Constitutional scholar Christos Papastylianos called the latter an example that displays the limits of judicial jurisdiction in Greece; the courts can deem an action as unconstitutional but are unable to prevent it. Papandreou's constitutional proposals took effect in 1986.

PASOK government and austerity