New Democracy

New Democracy (ND), conservative political party in Greece. New Democracy was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis, who oversaw the country’s transition from military dictatorship to democracy. It generally supports greater economic liberalization, including privatization and lower taxes, and is a strong supporter of European integration. New Democracy and the Panhellenic Socialist Movement are the two leading Greek parties.

New Democracy traces its roots to the People’s Party (Laikon Komma), which was founded in the early 20th century. The party’s direct antecedent was the National Radical Union (Ethniki Rizospastiki Enosis; ERE), which was founded in 1955 when Karamanlis became prime minister, but it was disbanded in 1967 when the military came to power and abolished parliament and political parties. Historically, conservatives in Greece had been strong supporters of the monarchy, but, when a referendum was called in 1974, New Democracy refused to support a constitutional monarchy and King Constantine II. Subsequently, the restoration of the monarchy (a republic had been proclaimed by the military regime in 1973) was rejected decisively by Greek citizens.

Greek political parties traditionally have been creations of charismatic leaders, and New Democracy was no exception. From the outset it was dominated by Karamanlis, whose influence over the party’s affairs continued to be strong even after he was elected president in 1980. Karamanlis’s immense prestige as the person who had overseen the restoration of democracy helped New Democracy win a majority of the vote and nearly three-fourths of the parliamentary seats in November 1974 in the first postcoup elections. In 1975 New Democracy used its massive majority in parliament to enact a revised constitution, which strengthened the powers of the president (weakened following revisions in the mid-1980s).

In subsequent years, New Democracy faced a strong challenge from Andreas Papandreou’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Panellinio Sosialistiko Kinima; PASOK). The party remained in power following the 1977 election, but attempts to give New Democracy a more coherent ideological basis met with little success. The espousal of a program of “radical liberalism” was not widely understood, and efforts to develop a more democratic internal structure met with only partial success. Under Karamanlis’s leadership the party was strongly in favour of Greece’s entry into the European Economic Community (renamed European Community in 1993 and embedded within the European Union [EU]) and was committed to Greece’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and to the country’s Western orientation.

When Karamanlis became president, he was succeeded as party leader by Georgios Rallis. In 1981 New Democracy was ousted from government by PASOK and remained out of power for the rest of the decade. In 1989 New Democracy won a plurality of the seats in parliament and formed an unprecedented coalition with the communists. The next year, New Democracy won a bare parliamentary majority, and its leader, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, became prime minister.

Following electoral defeats in 1993 and 1996, New Democracy elected as its leader Kostas Karamanlis (the nephew of party founder Konstantinos Karamanlis). Nevertheless, in 2000, in one of Greece’s closest elections, New Democracy narrowly lost to PASOK, which, though hampered by a lack of progress on economics, was rewarded by voters for its successes in foreign affairs (particularly its policies toward the EU and NATO and its attempt to improve relations with Turkey). In the 2004 elections, New Democracy won a clear majority in parliament, and Kostas Karamanlis became prime minister.

The party’s popularity—aided by a reform program that improved the economy—was severely undercut in August 2007 when Karamanlis’s government was criticized for its handling of deadly forest fires that had recently swept the country. In the general elections the following month, New Democracy lost seats but was able to hold a slim majority in parliament. An attempt to expand on this majority backfired in October 2009, when Karamanlis called for snap elections. A weak economy and party infighting contributed to New Democracy’s worst electoral showing in history, and Karamanlis promptly resigned as party leader.

Against the backdrop of Greece’s deepening financial and economic problems (see European sovereign debt crisis), New Democracy returned to power in a “unity” coalition government in November 2011. The party finished first in parliamentary elections in May 2012 but garnered only about 19 percent of the vote as Greeks reacted strongly against the austerity measures imposed by the government. Because no party was able to form a ruling coalition, Greeks voted again in June, handing New Democracy only a narrow victory over the anti-bailout party Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left). New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras then became prime minister at the head of a coalition government that included PASOK and the Democratic Left party. After Samaras was unable to muster enough support in parliament for his presidential candidate in December 2014, parliament was dissolved. A snap general election held in January 2015 was won by Syriza (New Democracy finished second), which took power in a coalition with the Independent Greeks.

In January 2016 Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the son of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, became party leader, and in 2019 he led New Democracy to victory in the parliamentary elections and became prime minister. Under his guidance, the Greek economy dramatically rebounded, setting the stage for New Democracy to continue to govern after winning two sets of parliamentary elections in 2023. (Although New Democracy finished first in voting in May, Mitsotakis eschewed leading a coalition government and instead chose a return to the polls in June in pursuit of an absolute parliamentary majority, which he obtained in that vote.)