[2][5] Under the condition that Papadopoulos would curtail any military interference that could hinder the process, Spyros Markezinis was the only old guard politician prepared to assist in the controversial mission of helping the transition to some form of parliamentary rule.
[5] Having secured quasi-dictatorial presidential powers under the new constitution, Papadopoulos not only acquiesced but ordered a wide range of liberalisation measures, including the abolition of martial law, the easing of censorship and the release of all political prisoners.
[6] This had the effect of bringing a wide segment of the Greek youth "into contact with the most significant works of historical and contemporary Marxist, anarchist, and Bourgeois radical thought".
[6] Ostensibly free elections were announced soon after to be held in 1974, in which political formations including part of the traditional left, but not the Communist Party of Greece (which was banned during the Greek Civil War), were expected to participate.
[5] Papadopoulos failed to convince the better part of the old political elite, including politicians such as Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Stephanos Stephanopoulos, to participate in his liberalisation attempt.
Moreover, they were opposed to the concentration of powers delegated to the President,[5] and resented having been demonised by Papadopoulos's junta as palaiokommatistes (meaning antiquated party men) during the previous six years.
[2] In fact Kanellopoulos, who was Prime Minister of Greece when deposed by the 1967 junta, remained vehemently opposed to any form of cooperation with the regime throughout the dictatorship years.
In addition, the stiff constraints imposed by the rigid and artificial Papadopoulos transition upon the democratic body politic of Greece antagonised not only the politicians but also the intelligentsia, whose primary exponents were the students.
[2][5] Not unexpectedly, in November 1973 the Athens Polytechnic uprising broke out starting with the usual student protest tactics such as building occupations and radio broadcasts.
"Arsakeiás", in Greek, is a female student of the Arsakeio, a strict all-female school in Athens in Papadopoulos's time, and a metaphor for a "quiet, shy girl".
On 25 November 1973 he used the uprising as a pretext to stage a counter coup that overthrew Papadopoulos and put an abrupt end to Markezinis's attempt at transition to democratic rule.
[21] During the Ioannides coup the radio broadcasts, following the now familiar coup in progress scenario featuring martial music interspersed with military orders and curfew announcements, kept repeating that the army was taking back the reins of power in order to save the principles of the 1967 revolution and that the overthrow of the Papadopoulos-Markezinis government was supported by the army, navy and air force.
[2] Being a more orthodox dictator and thinking in simpler terms than Papadopoulos, he solved the dilemma on how to achieve a democratic transition by dropping the plan completely.
[19][24] Now he ruled Greece from the shadows,[24] and was the de facto leader of a puppet regime composed by members some of whom were rounded up by ESA soldiers in roving jeeps to serve and others that were simply chosen by mistake.
Ioannides therefore abandoned the patient in a cast analogy that Papadopoulos offered in order to make a political statement that no democratic transition would take place during his tenure in power.
[33][23] Artists, painters, intellectuals who had publicly expressed anti-junta sentiments or created a work that criticised the junta, were remanded to EAT/ESA centres,[33] used to intimidate dissidents, and spread fear of dissent.
[33][36][37] People were held incommunicado without EAT/ESA notifying anyone for weeks or months on end and were only allowed limited communication thereafter with their families through the Greek Red Cross.
[39] Having successfully terrorised the population, the "junta nova" tried to realise its foreign policy ambitions by launching a military coup against President Makarios III of Cyprus.
[41][42] This military and political disaster for Greece and Cyprus led to thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of Greek-Cypriot refugees, deeply traumatised the Greek body politic for the long term and was the final straw for Ioannides who had already instigated or participated in three coups in seven years – a record in modern Greek history – with catastrophic results for both countries.
[2] Immediately after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus the dictators, not expecting such a disastrous outcome, finally decided that Ioannides's approach was catastrophic for the interests of the country.
Analysis of their motives can improve with time as new details come to the fore but it appears that the junta members realised that the Androutsopoulos government could not deal effectively with the dual crises of the Cyprus conflict and the economy.
On 23 July 1974, President Gizikis called a meeting of old guard politicians, including Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Spyros Markezinis, Stephanos Stephanopoulos, Evangelos Averoff and others.
The agenda was to appoint a national unity government with the mandate to lead the country to elections and at the same time to honourably extricate Greece from an armed confrontation with Turkey.
[25] He insisted that Constantine Karamanlis, prime minister of Greece from 1955 to 1963, was the only political personality who could lead a successful transition government, taking into consideration the new circumstances and dangers both inside and outside the country.
[47][48] Despite being faced with an inherently unstable and dangerous political situation, which forced him to sleep aboard a yacht watched over by a naval destroyer for several weeks after his return, Karamanlis moved swiftly to defuse the tension between Greece and Turkey, which came on the brink of war over the Cyprus crisis, and begin the process of transition from military rule to a pluralist democracy.
[54] The relatively short duration of the Greek dictatorship compared to its Spanish and Portuguese counterparts which had lasted for decades, facilitated a quick transition to democratic rule.
[11] Karamanlis's government nullified the 1968 junta constitution and replaced it with the basic law of 1952 modified with the provision that the appointment of military leaders in strategic positions was to be carried-out by civilian rule.
[61] Karamanlis's big win in 1974 demonstrated a great change in Greek politics, without giving cause for action to the relatively inactive, but still dangerous junta elements.
According to Ino Afentouli, the political expression of the metapolitefsi, namely the coming to power of a conservative leader such as Karamanlis, did not correspond to the changes which had in the meantime befallen Greek society.
Thereby, this current often opposed ND's governments, disdained the old centrist political elite expressed by Center Union – New Forces (and its leader Georgios Mavros) and prompted the rise to power of PASOK and Papandreou in the elections of 1981.