1981 Greek legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 18 October 1981.[1] The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), led by Andreas Papandreou, faced New Democracy, led by Georgios Rallis. Papandreou achieved a landslide and PASOK formed the first socialist government in the history of Greece (in 1963 Centrists had formed a government under the leadership of George Papandreou, Andreas' father, but their party, Center Union, was not a socialist party but a centrist, social-liberal one).

1981 Greek legislative election

18 October 1981
All 300 seats to the Greek Parliament 151 seats were needed for a majority
Leader Andreas Papandreou Georgios Rallis Charilaos Florakis Party PASOK ND KKE Leader since 3 September 1974 1980 1974 Last election 93 seats, 25.34% 171 seats, 41.84% 11 seats, 9.36% Seats won 172 115 13 Seat change 79 56 2 Popular vote 2,726,309 2,034,496 620,302 Percentage 48.07% 35.87% 10.93% Swing 22.73% 5.97% 1.57%
Prime Minister before election Georgios Rallis ND Subsequent Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou PASOK

Distribution of parliament seats after the 1981 elections.

  Panhellenic Socialist Movement: 172 seats

  New Democracy: 115 seats

  Communist Party of Greece: 13 seats

185 of the 300 seats were won by PASOK or the Communist Party: both openly eurosceptic. This was the high point of Greek euroscepticism, coming just months after the country's accession to the European Communities.[2]

Results

Party	Votes	%	Seats	+/–
Panhellenic Socialist Movement	2,726,309	48.1	172	+79
New Democracy	2,034,496	35.9	115	–56
Communist Party of Greece	620,302	10.9	13	+2
Progressive Party	95,799	1.7	0	New
Communist Party of Greece (Interior)	76,404	1.3	0	New
KODISO-KAE	40,126	0.7	0	New
Union of the Democratic Centre	22,763	0.4	0	–16
Liberal Party	20,645	0.4	0	New
Christian Democracy	8,638	0.2	0	New
For a Revolutionary Left	6,595	0.1	0	New
EKKE-M-L KKE	4,700	0.1	0	0
EDE-Trotskyists	1,646	0.0	0	0
Democratic Social Party	1,100	0.0	0	New
Byzantine National Organisation	407	0.0	0	New
Olympic Democracy	95	0.0	0	0
Hellenic Universal Olympic Democracy	5	0.0	0	New
National Refugee Party of Greece "Kimon"	2	0.0	0	New
Independents	11,025	0.2	0	0
Invalid/blank votes	82,421	–	–	–
Total	5,753,484	100	300	0
Registered voters/turnout	7,059,778	81.5	–	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Popular vote PASOK   48.06% ND   35.88% KKE   10.93% KP   1.69% KKE-ES   1.37% Others   2.09%

Parliament seats PASOK   57.33% ND   38.33% KKE   4.33%

Aftermath

Papandreou's new government introduced several interesting reforms in the wake of its victory (legalization of civil wedding, new family law, nationalization of certain private companies, etc.).

The main opposition party, New Democracy, faced serious internal conflicts. Georgios Rallis was forced to resign after the defeat and he was succeeded by Evangelos Averoff, former minister under Karamanlis governments. In 1984 Averof resigned because of health problems and Konstantinos Mitsotakis became the new leader of New Democracy. Noteworthy, Mitsotakis and Papandreou were both centrists before 1967 and they belonged to the same party, George Papandreou's Center Union. Nevertheless, they were strong opponents and they never liked each other. Papandreou was calling Mitsotakis "a defector, an apostate", because in 1965 he defected from the ruling Center Union and participated in a new government pleasing to Constantine II, who had just accepted George Papandreou's resignation after a serious disagreement between the King and the prime minister.

References

1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p830 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
2. Verney, Susannah (March 2011). "An exceptional case? Party and popular Euroscepticism in Greece, 1959–2009". South European Society and Politics. 16 (1): 51–79. doi:10.1080/13608746.2010.538960. S2CID 154573367.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)