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A constitutional referendum was held in Greece on 29 July 1973. [1] The amendments would confirm the abolition (on 1 June) of the monarchy by the military junta and establish a republic. The proposal was approved by 78.6% of voters with a turnout of 75%. [2]
The military junta had ruled Greece since a group of middle-ranking officers, under the leadership of Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, staged a coup on 21 April 1967. King Constantine II reluctantly endorsed the coup, but started preparing for a counter-coup by elements of the armed forces loyal to him. This counter-coup was launched on 13 December 1967 and failed, forcing the king and most of the royal family to flee to Italy. Greece remained a kingdom, with the king's functions exercised by a junta-appointed regent without sanction from the king, a post held until 1972 by General Georgios Zoitakis, and then assumed by an increasingly dominant Papadopoulos, who also held the position of prime minister and several ministerial posts.
In May 1973, however, a wide-ranging anti-junta movement was discovered and suppressed, just before its outbreak, among the ranks of the mostly royalist Navy. One ship, however, the destroyer Velos did actually mutiny, and upon reaching Italy, the captain Nikolaos Pappas and 31 officers and crew disembarked and asked for political asylum, creating worldwide interest. The failed Navy revolt demonstrated that even after six years of junta "normality", the opposition had not died off, and that it existed even amongst large parts of the armed forces, which were the regime's main internal supporter. This revelation created a major crisis for the junta leadership.
Papadopoulos, in a move which would bolster his own authority, deposed the king. On 1 June, a Constituent Act was proclaimed, which declared Greece a presidential republic, with Papadopoulos as president. The act was to be confirmed by a plebiscite, which was held on 29 July 1973. [3]
Defunct political parties and their leaders urged for a "No" as a sign of opposition to the regime, but the vote was tightly controlled by the junta, and the results were predictably favourable to the regime, considering -amongst others- that the process did not involve electoral catalogues. [4] [5]
| Choice | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| For | 3,843,318 | 78.57 | |
| Against | 1,048,308 | 21.43 | |
| Total | 4,891,626 | 100.00 | |
| Valid votes | 4,891,626 | 98.70 | |
| Invalid/blank votes | 64,293 | 1.30 | |
| Total votes | 4,955,919 | 100.00 | |
| Registered voters/turnout | 6,610,094 | 74.98 | |
| Source: Nohlen & Stöver | |||
Papadopoulos promised a return to democratic and parliamentary rule, based on the provisions of the new Constitution, and appointed Spyros Markezinis as Prime Minister, and he called elections for 10 February 1974. His attempt at controlled democratisation failed after the Athens Polytechnic uprising and the hardliners' coup under Dimitrios Ioannidis that followed. The forms of the Republic were maintained until the final collapse of the junta in July 1974 and the transitional period that followed (i.e. monarchy was not restored), and on 8 December 1974, another referendum was held, in which the Greek people confirmed the abolition of the monarchy, and the establishment of the current Third Hellenic Republic.[ citation needed ]
Constantine II was the last king of Greece, reigning from 6 March 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy on 1 June 1973.
Konstantinos G. Karamanlis, commonly anglicised to Constantine Karamanlis or just Caramanlis, was a four-time Prime Minister of Greece and two-term president of the Third Hellenic Republic. A towering figure of Greek politics, his political career spanned portions of seven decades, covering much of the latter half of the 20th century.
Geórgios Papadopoulos was a Greek military officer and dictator who led a coup d'etat in Greece in 1967 and became the country's Prime Minister from 1967 to 1973. He also was the President of Greece under the junta in 1973, following a referendum. However, after the effective suppression of the Athens Polytechnic uprising, he was, in turn, overthrown by hardliner Dimitrios Ioannidis, in a string of events that would culminate to the fall of the regime in 1974. His and the dictatorship's legacy, as well as its methods he constructed and effects on Greek economy and society as a whole, are still fiercely debated.
The president of Greece, officially the President of the Hellenic Republic, commonly referred to in Greek as the President of the Republic, is the head of state of Greece. The president is elected by the Hellenic Parliament; the role has been mainly ceremonial since the 1986 constitutional reform. The office was formally established by the Constitution of Greece in 1975, but has antecedents in the Second Hellenic Republic of 1924–1935 and the Greek junta in 1973–1974 which predated the transition to the current Third Hellenic Republic. The incumbent, since 13 March 2020, is Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
Odysseus Aggelis was a Greek nationalist military officer of the Artillery [Reg. Number 19386]. He reached the rank of four star General and served as Chief of the Greek Armed Forces and Vice President of the Hellenic Republic. He supported the military regime that was established on April 21, 1967.
Georgios Zoitakis was a Hellenic Army General and regent of Greece from 13 December 1967 to 21 March 1972, during the military regime of the Colonels.
Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece, Prince of Denmark, is the current head of the former Greek royal family as the second child and eldest son of Constantine II, the last King of the Hellenes from 1964 to 1973, and Anne-Marie of Denmark. He became head of the former Greek royal family following the death of his father on 10 January 2023. He was heir apparent to the throne of Greece and was its crown prince from birth, remaining so during his father's reign until the monarchy's abolition. As a male-line descendant of Christian IX of Denmark and grandson of Frederick IX of Denmark, he is a Danish prince, although not in succession to its throne. Margrethe II of Denmark and Queen Sofía of Spain are his aunts, and Felipe VI of Spain is his first cousin.
The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels was a right-wing military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. On 21 April 1967, a group of colonels overthrew the caretaker government a month before scheduled elections which Georgios Papandreou's Centre Union was favoured to win.
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 17 November 1974. They were the first after the end of the military junta of 1967–1974, and took place during the metapolitefsi era. The winner was Konstantinos Karamanlis and his newly formed conservative party, New Democracy. Karamanlis had already formed a government of national unity just after the fall of the dictatorship. The second-largest party was the centrist Center Union – New Forces. The third party in the Parliament became the newly-formed PASOK, a radical socialist party led by Andreas Papandreou, son of the former Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou.
The Metapolitefsi was a period in modern Greek history from the fall of the Ioannides military junta of 1973–74 to the transition period shortly after the 1974 legislative elections.
The currently deposed Greek royal family was the ruling family of the Kingdom of Greece from 1863 to 1924 and again from 1935 to 1973. The family is a branch of the Danish royal family, itself a branch of the House of Glücksburg. Upon its accession to power, It replaced the House of Wittelsbach that previously ruled Greece from 1832 to 1862. The first monarch was George I of Greece, the second son of King Christian IX of Denmark. The current head of the family is Pavlos, who assumed the role upon the death of his father, former King Constantine II on 10 January 2023. With the sole exception of Aspasia Manos, the consort of King Alexander, and her descendants, none of the members have been ethnically Greek.
In the modern history of Greece, starting from the Greek War of Independence, the Constitution of 1975/1986/2001 is the last in a series of democratically adopted Constitutions.
The history of the Hellenic Republic constitutes three republican periods in the modern history of Greece: from 1822 until 1832; from 1924 until 1935; and from 1974 through to the present. See also the constitutional history of Greece.
A referendum on retaining the republic was held in Greece on 8 December 1974. After the collapse of the military junta that ruled the country since 1967, the issue of the form of government remained unsolved. The Junta had already staged a referendum held on 29 July 1973, which resulted in the establishment of the Republic. However, after the fall of the military regime, the new government, under Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis, decided to hold another one, as Junta constituent acts were considered void. Constantine II, the former king, was banned by the new government from returning to Greece to campaign in the referendum, but the Karamanlis government allowed him to make a televised address to the nation. A total of 69.2% of voters favoured retaining the republic with a turnout of 75.6%.
A constitutional referendum was held in Greece on 15 November 1968. Voters were asked whether they wished to ratify a new constitution prepared by the dictatorial regime. It was approved by 92.1% of voters, with a voter turnout of 77.7%.
The Greek junta trials were the trials involving members of the military junta that ruled Greece from 21 April 1967 to 23 July 1974. These trials involved the instigators of the coup as well as other junta members of various ranks who took part in the events of the Athens Polytechnic uprising and in the torture of citizens.
The Greek Constitution of 1968 was a largely unimplemented constitution of Greece promulgated in May 1968 by the military regime which had been ruling Greece since the coup on 21 April 1967. It was confirmed by a plebiscite in September 1968 following an intensive three-month propaganda campaign by the regime.
The Greek Constitution of 1973 was an amended version of the Greek Constitution of 1968 by Greek dictator Georgios Papadopoulos, with the aim of abolishing the Greek monarchy. Papadopoulos's rewrite of the 1968 constitution replaced the terms "parliamentary monarchy" and "king" with "republican democracy" and "president of Greece". The constitution was enacted as part of Papadopoulos's failed attempt at liberalisation of his regime, but, like its 1968 predecessor, never fully implemented.
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