1964 Greek legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 16 February 1964.[1] They resulted in a clear victory for Georgios Papandreou and his Center Union (EK) party. Papandreou subsequently formed the 37th government since the end of World War II.[2]

1964 Greek legislative election
19 February 1964
All 300 seats of the Greek Parliament
151 seats were needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Georgios Papandreou Panagiotis Kanellopoulos Ioannis Passalidis
Party ΕΚ ERE EDA
Leader since 1961 1963 1951
Last election 138 seats, 42.0% 132 seats, 39.4% 28 seats, 14.3%
Seats won 171 107 22
Seat change 33 27 6
Popular vote 2,424,477 1,621,546 542,865
Percentage 52.7% 35.3% 11.8%
Swing 10.7% 4.1% 2.5%
Prime Minister before election

Georgios Papandreou
ΕΚ

 Subsequent Prime Minister

Georgios Papandreou
ΕΚ

Background

The government led by Panagiotis Kanellopoulos of the National Radical Union (ERE) resigned on 25 September 1963, after which Papandreou formed an interim government on 28 September. As no party had a majority in the Parliament, Papandreou's government initiated preparations for elections on 3 November.[2] Although the Center Union emerged as the largest party, allowing Papandreou to form a new government, it also soon resigned.[2] King Paul accepted Papandreou's resignation on 31 December 1963 and Ioannis Paraskevopoulos formed an interim government to serve until the 1964 elections.[2]

The ERE had been weakened prior to the elections when Constantine Karamanlis abandoned politics and exiled himself in Paris. The new ERE leader, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, formed an alliance with the Progressive Party of Spyros Markezinis.

Results
Party Votes % Seats +/–
Centre Union2,424,47752.7171+33
National Radical Union-Progressive Party1,621,54635.3107–27
United Democratic Left542,86511.822–6
List of Independents9,9510.200
Invalid/blank votes28,151–––
Total4,626,9901003000
Registered voters/turnout5,662,96581.7––
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Aftermath

Shortly after the elections, Papandreou formed his first solid government, which would last till 1965. However, in 1965 the apostasia crisis, a confrontation between Papandreou and King Constantine II, caused the government to fall. It was replaced by a series of weak governments, comprising centrist defectors and supported by the National Radical Union and Constantine. This eventually led to a military dictatorship starting in 1967, which exploited the endless political unrest.

gollark: On an unrelated note, I am cancelling all efforts to develop a less slow ++experimental_qa because it is too irritating.
gollark: Ah, applied principle of explosion.
gollark: And both seem like a reasonable response to "people will be eternally tortured if they do not do this".
gollark: I don't *agree* with religious evangelism, I'm saying that it does not seem inconsistent with "true Catholicism" as qh4os says.
gollark: How? Consistently, if you believe that people not believing your thing will go to hell, and hell is bad, you should probably tell them. I'm not sure exactly what Catholic doctrine wrt. that *is* though, I think it varies.

References
  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p830 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Milutin Tomanović (1965) Hronika međunarodnih događaja 1964, Institute of International Politics and Economics, p252 (in Serbo-Croatian)
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