Konstantinos G. Simitis, usually referred to as Costas Simitis or Kostas Simitis, is a Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece and was leader of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) from 1996 to 2004.
The Panhellenic Socialist Movement, known mostly by its acronym PASOK, is a social-democratic political party in Greece. Until 2012, it was one of the two major parties in the country, along with New Democracy, its main political rival.
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 7 March 2004. The New Democracy Party of Kostas Karamanlis won the elections, ending eleven years of rule by PASOK. PASOK was led into the elections by George Papandreou, who succeeded retiring Prime Minister Costas Simitis as party leader in February.
Konstantinos A. Karamanlis, commonly known as Kostas Karamanlis, is a Greek politician who served as the 10th Prime Minister of Greece from 2004 to 2009. He was also president of the centre-right New Democracy party, founded by his uncle Konstantinos Karamanlis, from 1997 to 2009, and he is currently a member of the Hellenic Parliament.
New Democracy is a liberal-conservative political party in Greece. In contemporary Greek politics, New Democracy has been the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties along with its historic rival, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). New Democracy and PASOK were created in the wake of the toppling of the military junta in 1974, and ruled Greece alternately for the next four decades. Following the electoral decline of PASOK, New Democracy remained one of the two major parties in Greece, the other being the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).
Antonis Samaras is a Greek politician who served as 14th Prime Minister of Greece from 2012 to 2015. A member of the New Democracy party, he was its president from 2009 until 2015. Samaras started his national political career as Minister of Finance in 1989; he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1992 and Minister of Culture in 2009.
Ioannis Alevras, sometimes spelled Yannis Alevras, was a Greek Panhellenic Socialist Movement politician and Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, who served as acting President of Greece in March 1985.
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 20 November 1977. After Prime Minister Constantine Karamanlis called for early elections, his New Democracy party suffered a significant loss of power. However, Karamanlis managed to secure an absolute majority in the Parliament. The big surprise was the success of PASOK, whose socialistic rhetoric remained radical. Because of PASOK's success, the Centrists led again by Georgios Mavros lost half of their power. As a result, Andreas Papandreou, PASOK's leader, became a prominent figure in Greek politics. The Communists and the Nationalists managed to amplify their support.
Evangelos-Vasileios "Vangelis" Meimarakis, is a Greek lawyer and politician who served as the acting President of New Democracy and Leader of the Opposition in Greece from 5 July to 24 November 2015, competing as the challenger to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in the September 2015 Greek legislative election. He lost in the run-off of the New Democracy leadership election, 2015–16. Since 2019, he has been a Member of the European Parliament.
Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 16 September 2007 to elect the 300 members of the Hellenic Parliament. The leading party for a second term was New Democracy under the leadership of Kostas Karamanlis with 42%, followed by George Papandreou and PASOK with 38%. New Democracy managed to secure an absolute but narrow majority of 152 out of 300 seats in parliament. The populist Popular Orthodox Rally entered the parliament for the first time with 10 seats, while the parties of the left, the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and Syriza, enjoyed a significant increase in their vote share. KKE received 8% of the votes and won 22 seats, while Syriza received 5% of the votes and 14 seats.
In early 2006, Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis of the New Democracy party proposed an amendment to the Greek Constitution of 1975/1986/2001 with 38 new provisions. Of these, 3 were adopted in May 2008:
Early parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 4 October 2009. Elections were not required until September 2011, but on 2 September 2009 Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis of New Democracy announced that he would request President Karolos Papoulias dissolve Parliament and call elections. Parliament was dissolved on 9 September.
The Leader of the Official Opposition is the politician who leads the official Opposition in Greece.
Legislative elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 6 May 2012 to elect all 300 members to the Hellenic Parliament. It was regular scheduled to be held in late 2013, four years after the previous election; however, an early election was stipulated in the coalition agreement of November 2011 which formed the Papademos Cabinet. The coalition comprised both of Greece's traditional major political parties, PASOK on the left and New Democracy (ND) on the right, as well as the right-wing Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS). The aim of the coalition was to relieve the Greek government-debt crisis by ratifying and implementing decisions taken with other Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) a month earlier.
Legislative elections were held in Greece on Sunday, 17 June 2012, to elect all 300 members to the Hellenic Parliament in accordance with the constitution, after all attempts to form a new government failed following the May elections. If all attempts to form a new government fails, the constitution directs the president to dissolve a newly elected parliament, and then to call for new parliamentary elections within 30 days of the dissolution. The president announced at 16 May the date for the new election, and signed the formal decree to dissolve the parliament and call for the election at 19 May.
The Greek government formation of May 2012 was a series of failed attempts to form a new government after the legislative election in May 2012 by the three largest parties: New Democracy (centre-right), Coalition of the Radical Left and Panhellenic Socialist Movement, respectively, and then followed by the President of Greece. After the negotiations led by the president had failed on 15 May, a temporary caretaker cabinet under Council of State president Panagiotis Pikrammenos was appointed on 16 May, and a new election was set for 17 June.
Legislative elections were held in Greece on Sunday 25 January 2015 to elect all 300 members to the Hellenic Parliament in accordance with the constitution. The election was held earlier than scheduled due to the failure of the Greek parliament to elect a new president on 29 December 2014.
European Parliament elections were held in Greece on 25 May 2014 to elect the 21 Greek members of the European Parliament. The number of seats allocated to Greece declined from 22 to 21, as a result of the 2013 reapportionment of seats in the European Parliament.
Indirect presidential elections were held in Greece in December 2014 and February 2015 for the succession to Karolos Papoulias as President of the Hellenic Republic. The candidate of the ND–PASOK government, Stavros Dimas, failed to secure the required majority of MPs of the Hellenic Parliament in the first three rounds of voting in December. According to the provisions of the Constitution of Greece, a snap election was held on 25 January 2015, which was won by the left-wing Syriza party. Following the convening of the new Parliament, the presidential election resumed. On 18 February 2015, veteran ND politician Prokopis Pavlopoulos, backed by the Syriza-ANEL coalition government, was elected with 233 votes.
An indirect election for the position of President of the Hellenic Republic was held by the Hellenic Parliament in 1995.
