Minority politics in Greece
C. M. Woodhouse
Greek politics used to be notorious for their instability. Prime ministers came and went sometimes at the rate of three or four a year; parties sub-divided like amoebas. In recent years, leaving aside the calamitous period of the Colonels' dictatorship (1967-74), things have become a good deal better.
Constantine Karamanlis has been prime minister for a total of eleven years (1955-63 and 1974-77), longer than any British prime minister since Salisbury. At most general elections in the last quarter of a century, the contest has been effectively, between two major parties, with one or two smaller ones occasionally holding the balance — a situation little different from that in Britain since 1974.
If these are the main criteria of political stability, it is likely that one of them will still be satisfied in Greece after the general election next Sunday, but possible that the other may not. The odds are in favour of Karamanlis remaining prime minister, at least until he decides to step up to the post of President of the Republic. But there is now a tendency among the parties to revert to their old practice of amoeboid fission. At present the breakaway groups are mostly very small, but increasingly numerous.
The four main contenders can be briefly labelled as Conservative (New Democracy, led by Constantine Karamanlis), Liberal (Union of the Democratic Centre, led by George Mavros), Socialist (Panhellenic Socialist Movement, led by Andreas Papandreoa), and Communist (various claimants). All of them have undergone some erosion since the last general election in 1974. Their present positions can be broadly defined in terms of the dissent which has caused minorities to break away from them.
On the right has emerged the National Rally, led by a former prime' minister, Stephanos Stephanopoulos. It regards Karamanlis as having moved dangerously to the left; it wants to restore the monarchy and amnesty the Colonels (or at least, many of its members do); it strongly supports free enterprise and the EEC (on its own terms); it wants to return unreservedly to the western alliance; and, most characteristically, it wants to restore the pseudo-classical katharevousa language for official purposes in place of the demotic with which the Karamanlis government replaced it.
The Liberals have lost two small groups calling themselves the Neo-Liberals and Socialist Initiative respectively. The former, led by the Cretan Mitsotakis, claim to inherit the tradition of Venizelos, and may well win some seats in Crete. The four deputies who form Socialist Initiative have joined a wide-ranging group called the , Alliance of Progressive and Left-Wing Forces, which includes Euro-Communists, Radical Socialists, Christian Radicals and various left-wingers who could not find a comfortable billet elsewhere. Among them is a party called Socialist Progress, which broke away from Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement.
The Communists are the most divided of all the major parties. They have split on many of the rocks of history; the aftermath of the civil war (1946-49), the Sino-Soviet dispute, the Colonels' dictatorship. The Communist Party of the Interior belongs to the Alliance of Progressive and Left-Wing Forces; so does the United Democratic Left (led by Elias Eliou, who also leads the Alliance). The Communist Party of the Exterior (led by Kharilaos Phlorakis, a veteran of the civil war) is the official Marxist-Leninist party which follows the Moscow line. The Revolutionary Communist Party of Greece, which won a minute number of votes in 1974, is Maoist. One of the few things these various Communist parties have in common is their mutual antagonism.
None of the splinter groups is likely to shake seriously the major parties from which they have broken away. There might be a shift of precedence between the various Communist parties., but collectively they are likely to remain a small minority. (In 1974, as the United Left, they won only eight seats out of 300). The main contest seems to be between the same three major parties as before, under the same three leaders: Karamanlis, Mavros and Papandreou. It is likely that the only real contest is for second place.
In 1974 Karamanlis won 220 seats, Mavros sixty and Papandreou twelve. It would not be surprising if Karamanlis's total fell and Papandreou's rose, even to the point of taking second place. This would not need such a large shift of votes as might appear, because the electoral system, known as 'reinforced proportional representation', tends as the name suggests to reinforce and even exaggerate success at the polls. To judge by the scenes which I witnessed in 1974, most of the young who had no votes then, but will have them now, seem likely to cast them for Papandreou. If Karamanlis wins again, Greece will continue on her present course towards joining the EEC, rejoining the military command of NATO, maintaining her defence agreement with the U.S, seeking co-operation with her Balkan neighbours and the Arabs, and moving towards a welfare state based on a mixed economy with a bias in favour of private enterprise. If any of the other parties were to win or (less improbably) to be in a position to form a coalition, at least some of these policies would be at risk.
Of the present contenders, only the Liberals and the Alliance would continue to negotiate entry into the EEC, and only the Liberals would accept even a limited association with NATO, excluding any military commitment. All of them would oppose the restoration of US bases in Greece; and all would pursue more socialist policies than Karamanlis, in greater or less degree. Leaving aside the right-wing splinter group, there are certain issues on which every party without exception agrees. One is their opposition to any idea of restoring the monarchy; another is opposition to an amnesty for the convicted supporters of the dictatorship. Rather strikingly, another is increased co-operation with the Balkan and Arab States. Lastly, no party will contemplate surrender to the Turks over Cyprus. On this issue, however, Papandreou and the extreme right paradoxically cal' bine in taking a more aggressive line than Karamanlis. My personal forecast is that Karamanlis will win with a reduced majority. But he will return to power with no illusions about the difficulties ahead. It is still going to be veil hard for Greece to negotiate her way int.° the EEC, and nearly impossible to negotiate a just solution of the Cyprus problem. Karamanlis might possibly prefer to reestablish a coalition government, on the, model of his first government after the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. That coalition was the most popular government Greece has ever had, and probably also the ablest.
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