1956 Greek parliamentary election

none Kingdom of Greece state parliamentary 1952 Greek parliamentary election 1952 1958 Greek parliamentary election 1958 All 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament 151 19 February 1956 Konstantinos Karamanlis 1960.jpg Konstantinos Karamanlis National Radical Union 165 1,594,112 47.38% Γεώργιος Α. Παπανδρέου 1.jpg Georgios Papandreou Democratic Union (Greece, 1956) 132 1,620,007 48.15% Prime Minister Prime Minister after election Konstantinos Karamanlis National Radical Union Konstantinos Karamanlis National Radical Union Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 19 February 1956.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p830 978-3-8329-5609-7 The result was a victory for Konstantinos Karamanlis and his National Radical Union (ERE) by securing the electoral vote despite trailing in the popular vote, due to gerrymandering employed by ERE. 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 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 Democratic Union was expected to lead.Grilla Michael 2007-05-22 Ο εκλογικός νόμος https://www.eleftheria.gr/index.php?MDL=pages&page=article&SiteID=MTg5Ng==&all=1 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20070927043250/https://www.eleftheria.gr/index.php?MDL=pages&page=article&SiteID=MTg5Ng==&all=1 2007-09-27 2022-12-07 www.eleftheria.grhttp://tovima.dolnet.gr/print_article.php?e=B&f=13110&m=A01&aa=1 "Το Βήμα" newspaper, 12 Nov 2000, "Δημοκρατία Διάτρητη" (In Greek) 2007-08-26 https://web.archive.org/web/20070929114953/http://tovima.dolnet.gr/print_article.php?e=B&f=13110&m=A01&aa=1 2007-09-29 dead As a result, the Democratic Union came up 19 seats short of a majority. The Democratic Union included centrist parties, as the Liberal Democratic Union led by Sophoklis Venizelos and the Liberal Party of Georgios Papandreou, as well as the left-wing EDA, led by Ioannis Passalidis. A few years later, Sophoklis Venizelos and Georgios Papandreou renounced their alliance with EDA, breaking up the 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 dexterous 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 Democratic Union 1620007 132 National Radical Union 1594112 165 Progressive Party 74545 0 List of Independents 31022 2 Popular Social Party 29375 0 #584e8b Christian Democracy 449 0 Independents 14851 1 15084 4507907 Ministry of the Interior,Ministry of the Interior Nohlen & Stöver References Category:Parliamentary elections in Greece Parliamentary Category:1950s in Greek politics Greece Greece Category:Konstantinos Karamanlis