In the years that followed, he remained a member of parliament representing the region of Messenia, until November 2024 when he was again expelled from the party's parliamentary group and from New Democracy, due to his criticism of the foreign policy of the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

[4] Samaras and former Prime Minister George Papandreou were dormitory roommates during their student years at Amherst College, but became bitter political rivals.

In a meeting of the Greek political leaders under the President of the Republic on the naming dispute on 13 April 1992, Samaras presented his own conditions for the solution of the crisis.

After New Democracy resoundingly lost the 2009 legislative election, Kostas Karamanlis resigned as head of the party, prompting a leadership race, and Samaras ran for the post.

Early polls showed he was running neck-and-neck with the perceived initial favorite Dora Bakoyanni, the former Foreign Minister and former Athens mayor.

He accepted his election with a speech at the party headquarters, and pledged to carry out a broad ideological and organizational reform, aspiring to regain majority status.

He was later instrumental in the expulsion of Bakoyanni (2010) for defying the party line and voting for an austerity measure required for European Union-International Monetary Fund backed lending.

Prime Minister George Papandreou announced his government's plans on 31 October to hold a referendum on the acceptance of the terms of a Eurozone bailout deal.

After several days of intense negotiations, the two major parties along with the Popular Orthodox Rally agreed to form a grand coalition headed by former Vice President of the European Central Bank Lucas Papademos.

[10] After the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) also failed to negotiate a successful agreement to form a government, emergency talks with the President of Greece ended with a new election being called while the outgoing Chairman of the Council of State Panagiotis Pikrammenos was appointed as Prime Minister of Greece in a caretaker government composed of independent technocrats.

[citation needed] On 20 June 2012, Samaras successfully formed a coalition with the PASOK (now led by former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos) and the Democratic Left (DIMAR).

[11] The new government had a majority of 28 (which was later reduced to 18),[12] with Syriza, the Independent Greeks (ANEL), Golden Dawn (XA) and the Communist Party (KKE) comprising the opposition.

The PASOK and DIMAR chose to take a limited role in Samaras's Cabinet, being represented by party officials and independent technocrats instead of MPs.

[17] Samaras implemented a series of reforms and austerity measures with the aim of reducing government budget deficits and making the Greek economy competitive.

[19] The Minister of Administrative Reform and e-Governance Kyriakos Mitsotakis implemented an evaluation process on the public sector to locate surplus staff members.

[25] On healthcare, Minister for Health Adonis Georgiadis gave complete free pharmaceutical coverage to more than 2.000.000 uninsured citizens,[26][27] with the cost being set at 340 million euros.

Also stated that "no one can force me to sacrifice my conscience", accused the prime minister of being cut off from the ND base and stressed that "the judge of all of us will be the people and history".