New Democracy (Greece)

New Democracy (Greek Νέα Δημοκρατία, German New Democracy ) is a liberal conservative party in Greece, which was founded in 1974 after the overthrow of the Greek military dictatorship of Konstantinos Karamanlis. The ND - founder Konstantinos Karamanlis is awarded the merit above all, the Europe - architect of Greece to be. Under his rule, both the association with the European Economic Community and the accession to the European Communities (1981 ) came into existence.

Political spectrum

The party combines a relatively broad political spectrum. Karamanlis, the previously self- founded by him rightist Ethniki Enosis Rizospastiki belonged ( National Radical Union ), tried the party as a modern and progressive display with a liberal program. In it, economic liberals such as social conservatives, royalists as former supporters of the Center Union combined. It is by far the most important conservative party in Greece. At European level, it is organized in the European People's Party.

Sign

The original logo of the New Democracy party showed their initials Ν and Δ, and a ( right) hand holding a burning torch.

2010, a new logo was introduced, the letters Ν and Δ are now borrowed from the DIN font. From the old and the new logo there is a version with ausgeschriebenem party name (instead of the initials), which is used in the election campaign.

The name or the logo of the party is represented in Greece in the color blue.

History

Development during the era Konstantinos Karamanlis

The party was founded on October 4, 1974, two months after the swearing in of Konstantinos Karamanlis was the first prime minister after the military dictatorship. She won the first free elections after the military rule rather on the personal reputation of Karamanlis. The parliamentary elections in 1977 were, albeit with a smaller majority, won.

Following the resignation of Karamanlis in 1980 Georgios Rallis became his successor.

From Mitsotakis to Kostas Karamanlis

Despite the successful accession to the EC, the ND was beaten by PASOK under Andreas Papandreou in elections in 1981. This was the first of a series of electoral defeats which suffered the New Democracy party in the parliamentary elections in the eighties and nineties. Only in the period from 1989 to 1993, she managed to temporarily return to government power.

Your dominant figure was since 1984 Konstantinos Mitsotakis, now Honorary President of the ND. After the lost parliamentary elections in 1993 ( the ND then reached 39,30 % of the votes), he joined voluntarily by the Office of the party leaders what he later called " serious mistake " designated. His successor was the former Athens mayor Miltiadis Evert. Both politicians controlled Karamanlis as a pro-European course. After the electoral defeat of 1996 Evert resigned and was succeeded by the hitherto relatively unknown ND MP Kostas Karamanlis. Not least because of the name similarity to his uncle Konstantinos Karamanlis he could woo a Tie off past successes of the party. But first, could also Kostas Karamanlis not achieve electoral success, however, already dropped the electoral defeat in April 2000, extremely scarce from: With 42.73 % to 43.79 %, the ND missed the majority only just, which is why the guide was no question. Since 1996, there have been several spectacular spills, which also had start-ups of smaller parties such as the "liberals" of Stefanos Manos result, however, the spin-offs have not been successful; However, the ND shut himself never lump sum to the resumption of apostates.

Even before the deselection there were also internal party doubts about the economic policies of Kostas Karamanlis, who also stepped down as party chairman after the election defeat. As the successor Dora Bakogianni was traded, unlike Karamanlis could not benefit from a family continuity, for now was the family connection as a disadvantage. They defeated despite their popularity among the people, was elected Andonis Samaras.

Parliamentary elections

The New Democracy emerged as the winner from the Greek parliamentary elections on March 7, 2004. The leading candidate of the party Kostas Karamanlis was then commissioned by the President Konstantinos Stephanopoulos with the formation of a new government on March 8, 2004.

Despite loss of votes for the New Democracy party was able to defend its absolute majority of seats in Parliament in the parliamentary elections on 16 September 2007. It reached a vote share of 41.86 % (2004: 45.4 %), which won 152 of the 300 parliamentary seats. After Prime Minister Karamanlis had been accused of poor crisis management during the devastating forest fires in August 2007, before the election, higher losses for the New Democracy had been expected.

In the parliamentary elections on October 4, 2009, New Democracy lost more than 8 percentage points, and thus its parliamentary majority. It reached only 91 seats with around 33.5 percent. Karamanlis came back immediately after the election as party chairman. For his successor as a candidate, the former Foreign Minister Dora Bakogianni, the former Culture Minister Antonis Samaras and the Prefect of Thessaloniki Panagiotis Psomiadis. In an election in which for the first time were able to select all party members, Andonis Samaras 2009 was elected the new party chairman on 29 November. Samaras denied the government of George Papandreou in the sovereign debt crisis any support. His rival Dora Bakogianni was immediately expelled from the party after they voted against the party line with the Papandreou government; she founded the Dimokratiki Symmachia.

Participation in the government Papademos

As the financial crisis deepened in November 2011, the economic situation was getting bigger by the severe cutbacks ever more dramatic, the discontent of the population, surpassed the New Democracy, PASOK in the opinion polls, but occupied a large loss of confidence of the public to both major parties. Under intense domestic and foreign pressure, Papandreou was forced to resign, but Samaras made ​​contrary to the hitherto advocated by him strict denial of participation by ND at a transition government and the participation of new of the "troika" of EU, IMF and ECB presupposes a further loan assistance drastic reform and austerity measures agree. He made early elections to the condition and tried to participate in the government of Loukas Papademos present as minor; as representative of the ND parliamentary representatives were sent to the government Papademos; the two deputy party chairman Stavros Dimas Dimitris Avramopoulos and received with the exterior and the Ministry of Defence, although important ministries. Apart from them, the ND sent but only a few deputy ministers and secretaries of state in the cabinet.

When voting on by the " troika", the troika of the European Commission ( European Commission ), the European Central Bank ( ECB) and International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) demanded austerity and reform measures refused numerous members of the ruling allegiance and were from the party excluded. The size of the parliamentary faction of the LP was originally characterized by 91 to 62 deputies.

In the parliamentary elections on 6 May 2012, the New Democracy received only 18.85% and thus 108 seats, which was regarded as lesson of voters for the austerity and reform measures. It was, however, so again the strongest party, even though they lost more than 60% of their voters over the 2007 election, when she had received almost three million votes.

Since this choice yielded no working majority, found on June 17, again held parliamentary elections. From these, the New Democracy party went again as strongest party, where she was able to increase its share of the vote to 29.66 % and scored 129 mandates.

After New Democracy and PASOK with the Democratic Left to form a government had to agree, Andonis Samaras was sworn in on 20 June 2012 as the Greek Prime Minister. The government consisted of representatives of the New Democracy and technocrats. The two smaller coalition partners sent no party members in the Cabinet. In June 2013 different dieDemokratische left out of the coalition; the government was reshuffled and the PASOK chairman Evangelos Venizelos and other members of his party were given cabinet posts.

Results in parliamentary elections

597187
de