Greek constitutional crisis of 1985

Papandreou instead backed Supreme Court justice Christos Sartzetakis, who was popular with left-leaning voting blocks for his investigation of the politically motivated murder of Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963.

Sartzetakis was elected president by the Hellenic Parliament in a tense and confrontational atmosphere due to constitutionally questionable procedures by Papandreou.

However, the choice of Sartzetakis as president helped Papandreou and his socialist PASOK party to secure the 1985 Greek parliamentary election despite his inability to handle the deterioration of the economy of Greece.

Upon the foundation of the First Hellenic Republic, the Greek political institutions and economy were underdeveloped and heavily indebted due to the liberation wars.

[1] The lack of political conscience among the Greeks[i] led to friction between the local aristocratic families and the first Prime Minister Ioannis Kapodistrias, leading to his assassination.

[7] After the lifting of martial law (1947-1950), post-civil-war governments were politically weak and heavily depended on the external patronage of the United States (Marshall Plan) to contain communism amid Cold War.

Moreover, article 31[10] stated that the king hires and fires ministers (Greek: Ο βασιλεύς διορίζει και παύει τους υπουργούς αυτού).

In the early 1960s, Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou made a faint attempt to gain control of the military, which alarmed many officers without weakening them.

[18] The king, acting within his constitutional rights, tried to bring members of the Center Union party to his side and form a government, leading to Apostasia of 1965.

[20] The prolonged political instability between the politicians and the king in finding a solution led a group of Colonels to intervene and rule Greece for seven years.

Nearly universally, the political world blamed Andreas Papandreou, even by his father,[ii] for his radical and uncompromising militant stance as the person primarily responsible for the fall of Greek democracy.

[23] After the junta's fall due to its inability to handle the Turkish invasion of Cyprus,[24] the dominant political figure, Constantine Karamanlis, returned to restore democratic institutions in Greece.

In the meantime, the functions of the king were to be discharged by the incumbent President Phaedon Gizikis, who was appointed by the junta's regime as a nominal figurehead.

[25] The presidential powers, which overall exceeded those of the monarch under the 1952 Constitution, were drawn inspiration from the recent Gaullism reforms in the France where Karamanlis spent time (1963-1974).

In 1980, after Karamanlis secured the entry of Greece into European Economic Community, he became president, handing over the premiership to Georgios Rallis, which created a power vacuum that contributed to Andreas Papandreou winning the 1981 Greek parliamentary election and becoming prime minister.

In the eyes of Greece's allies, Karamanlis, as President, would act as a restraining factor on radical departures in foreign and domestic affairs if Papandreou realized his campaign promises.

[33][34] Papandreou took further steps in achieving social reconciliation, but unlike Karamanlis's inclusive approach, Papandreou instrumentalized the painful and divided past by regularly invoking the memories of the civil war ("right the wrongs of the past") and "revenge of the losers [of the Civil War]" (Greek: "η ρεβάνς των ηττημένων") to maintain the support of the left-leaning faithful by demonstrating to them that PASOK remained true to its campaign promises and left-wing roots.

[31][35] Nevertheless, the cohabitation of the two men in the 1981–1985 period was successful since Papandreou governed in a more pragmatic approach compared to his radical polarizing rhetoric, by reversing many of his campaign promises.

On 6 March 1985, New Democracy announced that they would support Karamanlis' second Presidency term, while on the same day, the KKE party declared that they would put forward their own candidate.

[28] Constitutional scholars were subsequently divided on whether Alevras, as the acting President, could participate in the parliamentary vote for his successor; in the end, the PASOK-dominated parliament decided to allow it, with New Democracy deputies leaving the chamber.

The election was carried out in conditions of high political tension; at one point, a New Democracy MP momentarily grabbed the ballot box.

[44] Mitsotakis considered the vote illegal and claimed that if New Democracy won the elections, Sartzetakis would not be president by bringing the legality of the process to Council of State, further deepening the constitutional crisis.

His argument was the hypothetical case of an activist president, mimicking the tendency of kings of Greece to intervene in the political life since the creation of the modern Greek state.

[48]Scholars considered such constitutional changes "unnecessary" since no president had utilized these powers in the course of the Third Hellenic Republic until the time Papandreou raised the issue.

[50] Scholars also noted that the proposed changes would make the prime minister the most powerful ("autocratic") position in the Greek state since there would not be any constitutional restraints.

[58][59][60] Moreover, choices made in the early 1980s on anti-terrorism legislation and controversial foreign policy decisions led to a significant rise in terrorist incidents in Greece.

The two parties, while belonging to opposite ideological camps (as well as having battled one another in the Greek Civil War), both sought a "catharsis," i.e., an investigation and trial of PASOK's corruption.