1981 Greek legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 18 October 1981.[1][2] PASOK, led by Andreas Papandreou, faced New Democracy, led by Georgios Rallis. Papandreou achieved a landslide and PASOK formed the first socialist government in the history of Greece (in 1963 Centrists had formed a government under the leadership of George Papandreou, Andreas' father, but their party, Center Union, was not a socialist party but a centrist, social-liberal one).

1981 Greek legislative election
18 October 1981
All 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament
151 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Andreas Papandreou Georgios Rallis Charilaos Florakis
Party PASOK ND KKE
Last election 25.34%, 93 seats 41.84%, 171 seats 9.36%, 11 seats
Seats won 172 115 13
Seat change Increase 79 Decrease 56 Increase 2
Popular vote 2,726,309 2,034,496 620,302
Percentage 48.07% 35.88% 10.94%
Swing Increase22.73pp Decrease5.96pp Increase1.58pp
Prime Minister before election

Georgios Rallis
ND

 Prime Minister after election

Andreas Papandreou
PASOK

Observers had expected a PASOK victory but were surprised by the size of the victory.[2]

185 of the 300 seats were won by PASOK or the Communist Party: both openly eurosceptic. This was the high point of Greek euroscepticism, coming just months after the country's accession to the European Communities.[3]

Results
PartyVotes%Seats+/–
PASOK2,726,30948.07172+79
New Democracy2,034,49635.88115–56
Communist Party of Greece620,30210.9413+2
Progressive Party95,7991.690New
Communist Party of Greece (Interior)76,4041.350New
KODISO–KAE40,1260.710New
Union of the Democratic Centre22,7630.400–16
Liberal Party20,6450.360New
Christian Democracy8,6380.150New
For a Revolutionary Left6,5950.120New
EKKE – M-L KKE4,7000.0800
International Workers' Union – Trotskyists1,6460.0300
Democratic Social Party1,1000.020New
Byzantine National Organisation4070.010New
Olympic Democracy950.0000
Hellenic Universal Olympic Democracy50.000New
National Refugee Party of Greece "Kimon"20.000New
Independents11,0250.1900
Total5,671,057100.003000
Valid votes5,671,05798.57
Invalid/blank votes82,4211.43
Total votes5,753,478100.00
Registered voters/turnout7,059,77881.50
Source: Nohlen & Stöver

Aftermath

Papandreou's new government introduced several interesting reforms in the wake of its victory (legalization of civil wedding, new family law, nationalization of certain private companies, etc.).

The main opposition party, New Democracy, faced serious internal conflicts. Georgios Rallis was forced to resign after the defeat and he was succeeded by Evangelos Averoff, former minister under Karamanlis governments. In 1984 Averof resigned because of health problems and Konstantinos Mitsotakis became the new leader of New Democracy. Noteworthy, Mitsotakis and Papandreou were both centrists before 1967 and they belonged to the same party, George Papandreou's Center Union. Nevertheless, they were strong opponents and they never liked each other. Papandreou was calling Mitsotakis "a defector, an apostate", because in 1965 he defected from the ruling Center Union and participated in a new government pleasing to Constantine II, who had just accepted George Papandreou's resignation after a serious disagreement between the King and the prime minister.

References
  1. Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p830 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
  2. Clogg, Richard (1982). "The greek elections of 1981". Electoral Studies. 1 (1): 95–99. doi:10.1016/0261-3794(82)90132-9. ISSN 0261-3794.
  3. Verney, Susannah (March 2011). "An exceptional case? Party and popular Euroscepticism in Greece, 1959–2009". South European Society and Politics. 16 (1): 51–79. doi:10.1080/13608746.2010.538960. S2CID 154573367.
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