Greek legislative election, 1956

Greek legislative election, 1956

19 February 1956
All 300 seats to the Greek Parliament 151 seats were needed for a majority
First party Second party   Leader Konstantinos Karamanlis Sofoklis Venizelos Party ERE FIDE Leader since 1955 1948 Last election 247 seats 51 seats Seats won 165 132 Seat change -82 +81 Percentage 47.4% 48.2% Swing -1.8% +14.2%
PM before election Konstantinos Karamanlis ERE Subsequent PM Konstantinos Karamanlis ERE

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 19 February 1956. The result was a victory for Constantine Karamanlis and his National Radical Union party by securing the electoral vote despite trailing in the popular vote. It was the first general election in Greece in which women had the right to vote, although women had first voted in a by-election in Thessaloniki Prefecture in 1953 in which the first female MP was elected.

Although the Liberal Democratic Union, a coalition of centrist parties, received a slim plurality of votes, the conservative governing party, the National Radical Union, won the most seats due to a complex and controversial electoral system enacted by Karamanlis. A "first past the post" system was applied in the rural constituencies where the ERE was expected to gain a plurality, while proportional representation was reserved for the urban constituencies, where the Liberal Democratic Union was expected to lead. As a result, the Liberal Democratic Union came up 19 seats short of a majority.

The Liberal Democratic Union included the Liberal Party, led by Sophoklis Venizelos and Georgios Papandreou, as well as the left-wing EDA, led by Ioannis Passalidis. A few years later, Georgios Papandreou and Sophoklis Venizelos renounced their alliance with EDA, breaking up the Liberal Democratic Union.

Background

In 1955, Karamanlis was chosen by the King Paul I as successor of prime minister General Alexandros Papagos, who had just died. The decision was controversial, as Karamanlis was not a leading member of Papagos' party, and caused the vehement reactions of the party's two most prominent members, Stefanos Stefanopoulos and Panagiotis Kanellopoulos.

Nevertheless, Karamanlis, thanks to the support of the royal family and his own dextrous handlings, managed to establish himself as a strong leader. After stabilizing his leadership, he dissolved the Greek Rally party and created his own conservative right-wing party, the National Radical Union, which also comprised some prominent centrists (Evangelos Averoff, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Konstantinos Tsatsos) and went on to dominate the Greek political scene for the next 8 years.

Results

Party	Votes	%	Seats
Liberal Democratic Union	1,620,007	48.2	132
National Radical Union	1,594,112	47.4	165
Progressive Party	74,545	2.2	0
List of Independents	31,002	0.9	2
Popular Social Party	29,375	0.9	0
Christian Democracy	449	0.0	0
Independents	14,851	0.4	1
Invalid/blank votes	15,084	–	–
Total	3,379,425	100	300
Registered voters/turnout	4,507,907	75.0	–
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Popular vote
FIDE			48.15%
ERE			47.38%
KP			2.22%
Others			2.25%

Parliament seats
ERE			55.00%
FIDE			44.00%
Others			1.00%