bio andreas papandreou

7/29/2019 Bio Andreas Papandreou

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An dreas G . Papandreou:A B rief Po lit ical B iogra ph y

by ALEXANDER KITROEFF

W hat follows provides a basic chronological framew ork ofAndreas Papandreou's life, something that can be used as abackd rop to a m ore detailed analysis of his political career. Thereis only a brief outline of his upbring ing, edu cation and h is aca -dem ic career followed b y a m ore detailed account of h is politicalcareer that em phasizes his role as a po litical leader in govern-m ent and in opposition, the performance of his party, PA SO Kin the ge neral elections a nd his m ajor initiatives as prime m inis-ter, especially in the field of foreign policy. This is not an inter-pretative and m uch less an academically oriented biography thedifficult task of a ttaining such goa ls is best left to specialists.A ndrea s Papa ndreo u w ill certainly test their skills . He ha d arich a nd varied intellectual and political education and an evenricher set of experiences. Papand reou appea rs to have kep t mostof i t on tap rather than gradua lly em bracing one p art and dis-carding another, even though he bec am e increasingly less radical.Papan dreou thus defies the sim ple labels that have been u sedto describe him: ideologue , rom antic, m averick, opportunist, old-style polit ician, advoc ate of a unique road tow ard social ism ,popu liSt, and so on . His actions at different t im es cou ld havejustified any o f those descriptions, but seen as a w hole his careerw as far m ore com plex, as is com m on perhaps of leaders whomix short term tactics with longer term strategies almost atrandom . A strong leader he certainly wa s, and a cha rism atic oneat that; it is also true that he gradually m oderated his radicalismALEXANDER KITROEFF, an editor of the ]HD, teaches History atHaverford College and is com plet ing a book-length m s. provis ionallyent i tled "C ultural Nat ional ism Tra nsform ed: Gre ece , 1821-1903."

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after gaining pow er in 1981. Those things in them selves do notm ake for a very c lear pattern, at least not w ithout a great dea lm ore careful analysis than can be attemp ted here. Ano ther issuehis biographers w ill have to c onfront w ith care is the positionthat political rhetoric playe d in his political care er. A t an agew hen textual analysis is being used mo re and m ore in the hu-m anities and the social sciences, to assert that his radical lan-guage was merely "em pty rhetoric" would be to underestimate thesignificance of language in represen ting political interests and inact ing as a m edium through w hich Papandreou connected hispolit ical programs w ith popu lar concerns as well as in how heshaped those pop ular concerns. To sim ply look for the "real"Papandreou behind a rhetorical sm oke screen w ould be to ignorethe socio-cultural context in which he thrived as a politicalleader. This chrono logical narrative attem pts to sketch his careeragainst that broade r context.Early Y ears, 1919-1939

An dreas Papandreou w as born on F ebruary 5, 1919, on theisland of C hios. His father, G eorge Papand reou, had been po stedthere by P rime M inister Eleftherios Venizelos as the gen eralgovernor of the A egean islands. His mother, Sophia Mineiko,was the daughter of a Polish army engineer who had served w iththe Greek arm y during the Balkan W ars.In 1923, w hen the young A ndreas was four years old, thefamily m oved to A thens, wh ere his father continued his careerin politics and prac ticed law . The high scho ol he attended w asthe A me rican C ollege of A thens, graduating in 1937 and e nter-ing the Law School of the University of A thens. This wa s theperiod of the Metaxas dictorship that ruled Greece between 1936and 19 41, whe n the regim e depo rted his father, one o f its op-ponen ts , to the island of A ndros. An dreas him self engag ed inactivities against the M etaxas d ictatorship. The authorities ar-rested him and held him for three days in 1936 while he was stillin high school, beca use he allegedly destroye d the regime 's pro-pagand a hand outs and w al l posters. He w as arrested aga in inMarch 1939, accused o f engaging in subversive activities as a8OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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m em ber of a sm all trotskyist group. Th is t im e the authorit iesheld him fo r four m onths, and through h is father's efforts theyallowed him to leave for the United States to continue hisstudies.A ndreas Pap andreou's mem bership in a trotskyist organiza-t ion, his arrest , and the circum stances of his release caused agreat deal of controversy m uch later . The de cision to join thet rotskyist group w as unusual because the trotskyist mo vem entin G reece w as relatively insignificant at the time. Y et the otherradical alternative, adhering to the hard-line com m unist partythat was both crushed an d infiltrated by the regim e w ould haveprobab ly been just as risky. Th e arrest and release were hard lyremarkable at the time. Papandreou himself deals with theincident briefly, writing that he "w as arrested, im prisoned an dtortured" in the preface of his Democracy at Gunpoint, a bookabout the establishm ent of the colonels' dictatorship pu blishedin 1971. C ornelius C astoriadis, the Paris-based philosophe r w how as also a mem ber of that group, and later a political oppone nt,s tated in new spaper interviews that he suspected that Papan-dreou's release w as in return for striking som e sort of deal w iththe authorities. In any ca se, Papandreo u's opponents brough t uphis trotskyist past frequen tly, even though h is political positionswere m oving rightward.The Academic Period in the U.S. 1940-1959

Papa ndreou left G reece for the U nited States in late 1939--reputedly with $14 in h is pocket. He com pleted his studies in theU.S. and embarked on a notable academ ic career . In 1943 heobtained U.S. citizenship, a mov e that wa s to cause controversylater on, when his political opponents would infer that thisshow ed "unp atriotic motives." Ironically, m ost of those acc usa-tions cam e from those w ho acce pted G reece's subordination toits great A m erican ally w ithout question. Moreov er, coming asthey d o in a coun try that has seen literally m illions of person sacquiring fo reign citizenship w ithout loosing their "G reekne ss,"and a country that considers practically everyone of G reek de-scent as part of " Hellenism," those accusations ring false. Aw areAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography


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that nevertheless they m ight dam age h is political career, Papan-dreou c arefully po inted out in Democracy at Gunpoint that hestill retained, "as all Greek s do," h is G reek citizenship. Pap an-dreou's choice to stay so long in the United States should not beoverlooked w hen con sidering the formative elemen ts in his po-l it ical career. His absence from G reece m eant that he wa s ableto deve lop politically and intellectually in a different environ-m ent to that of his future poli t ical r ivals. He has w ri tten thatcam paigning for D em ocratic Party p residential nom inee Ad laiStevenson in 1952 w as a pivotal m om ent in his life, re-aw aken -ing his com m itm ent to politics. His w ife, Margare t, w as alreadyactive in U.S. polit ics and she w as undou btedly an im portantinfluence in that respect. O ne w onders w hether that experiencewith Stevenson sharpened his appreciation of the role partym achines and o rganized activists could play, as opposed to them ore tradit ional an d p ersonal cl ientelist type of mobilizationthat was being refined in G reece at the time.In 1940 Papandreou enrolled as a graduate student atHarvard, wh ere he received a doctorate in econom ics in 1943.In the sam e year h e obtained U.S. citizenship and joined the U.S.N avy, wh ere he served in the m edical corps. Upon leaving theN avy he returned to Harvard, where he b ecam e an ins tructorand the n an a ssistant professor in 1947. In 1944, the ye ar hisfather became prime minister of Greece, he w as appointed con-sultant to the G reek de legation to the Un ited N ation's Mon-etary Con vention in W ashington, D . C. In 1947 he wed C hristinaRassias (a Greek American), but the marriage lasted only afew m onths . He left Harva rd in 1947 to take up a po sition atthe University of Minnesota, w here he stayed through 1956. In1951 he m arried Ma rgaret Cha nt (of Elm hurst , I l linois) shehas recoun ted that they m et at a dentist's waiting room in 1950.They had four chi ldren, George, N ikos, Andreas and Sophia .Besides a spe ll at N orthwestern U niversity, the n ext m ajor stephe took in terms of his academ ic career wa s to join the De part-m ent of Eco nom ics of the University of C alifornia at Berke leyin 1956. Ex cept visits to G reece, i t is w orth noting that in 1959Papa ndreou traveled to Y ugoslavia, invited there by M arshallTito. The Y ugoslays w ere in the midst of soul-searching debatesabout whether they should liberalize their economy , a mom ent that10OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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preiaged the emergen ce of a system that in a sense fell in betweenthe typical western and Soviet econom ic developm ent mod els.A gain, one m ay w onder ab out the significance of that visit andhow it m ay hav e influenced Pa pand reou's thinking, especiallylater on whe n he confronted som ew hat sim ilar econom ic ques-tions in G reece.In Greece with the Center Union Party, 1960-1967

In 1960 P apandreou returned to G reece in order to workas an econo m ist, but he soon entered ac tive po litics. He playedan imp ortant role in the C enter Union adm inistration of 1963-1965 an d he be cam e involved in the political hiatus G reek par-liamentary politics experienced from mid-1995 through theestablishm ent of the co lonels ' dictatorship in A pril 196 7. It isironic that Prime M inister Co nstantine K aram anlis invited Pa-pandreou to G reece because they beca me fierce rivals after 1974.A ccording to som e sources his father, G eorge Papa ndreou, putforw ard the original idea that An dreas should return to Greeceand K aramanlis agreed to it . He also agreed w ith A ndreas' sug-gestion that an economics and development "think tank" beestablished in A thens under his leadership. The C enter for Re-search and Planning (K EPE , according to its Greek acronym )was duly established, with backing from the Ford Foundation.Th e increasingly polit icized atmosph ere in G reece, howe ver,coupled b y his father's role as an increasingly vo cal oppositionleader, persuaded A ndreas that he should becom e involved inpolitics. Fo llow ing the C enter Union's narrow electoral victoryunder his father 's leadership in N ovem ber 1963, Papan dreoubecam e one o f his father's advisors.In the next elections George Papandreou called, in Feb ruary1964, hoping to gain a com fortable majority, An dreas ran as aC enter Union candidate in his ancestral home district, the Achaiaprefecture in Peloponnesus. In order to do so, he renounce d hisU.S. citizensh ip. He was ea sily elected to p arliam ent, while theC enter Union gained a m assive 53% of the vote. His father, theprime m inister, appo inted him g overnm ent m inister and in June1 .964 m oved h im to the post of deputy minister of coordination.Andreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography1


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Y et he res igned in N ovem ber of that year , a sign that he w astoo radical for the party leadership. N onetheless, he wa s farfrom being politically weakened, for a growing number ofdepu ties, other political figures, intellectuals, and labor un ionistsral lied to his side; the C enter Un ion deputies wh o supp ortedhis more radical social and econom ic agenda becam e an informalcenter-left parliam entary faction. N evertheless, his father ap-pointed him m inister of coordination in A pril, 1965.A ndreas Papandreou hardly found any t im e to reshape orplan Greece's economic development because he w as caught upin the p olit ical po larizat ion an d instabil ity tha t culm inated inthe king 's dismissal of G eorge P apandreou as pr ime m inis terin July 1965, and the ensuing political crisis that lastedalmost two years. Andreas w as publicly accused of having formeda secret organization of arm y officers by the conservative op-position party, ERE . The organization, known as A SPIDA , wassuppo sed to be plann ing the overthrow of the poli tical statusquo. The oppo sit ion press dem anded that Papan dreou be dis-m issed from h is ministerial post . This w as a m ovem ent by theconservative p olitical forces, their allies am ong the o fficer co rpsand the king, designed to underm ine the C enter Union party.Indeed, those three elem ents, the king, the arm y and the con-servative leadership, had dominated post-Civil War Greek politics,and the rise to pow er of the Cen ter Union party threatened theirpow er and interests. Invoking the fear of com m unism that theright had assiduously cultivated since the en d of the C ivil W ar,those forces sought to paint the C enter Union as a party w hosepolicies wo uld eventually pav e the w ay for a left-wing takeover.A ccordingly, the conservative elemen t of the electorate mobilizedagainst the governm ent w hile the suppo rters of the center, theleft and the social groups that the right had not favored ralliedto the side o f the ce ntrist l iberal part of the electorate that sup-ported the Cen ter Union.The right versus left scenario ha d bec om e a self-fulfillingprophecy. I t would becom e a perm anent frame of reference forAndreas Papandreou for the rest of his political career. In asense h e w as able to turn the tables on the right . Just as theyhad used the right versus left dichotomy to raise fears associatedw ith the C ivil W ar of 1947-49 to bo lster their s tanding in the12OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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1950s and the 1960s, Papandreou was able to manipulate the samedichotom y in the interests of the left after 1974. What was extraor-dinary w as that he did so even though his polit ical backgroundw as di fferent f rom the left of the 1940s, that was com m unistinfluenc ed. Playing on the broad er left ima ge that the left ofthe 1940s had tried to p roject, not alway s persuasively, Papan -dreou h i jacked the em ot ive cause of the lef t-wing resis tancem ovem ent from under the eyes of the comm unists.Political tension peaked w hen K ing Con stantine found anexcuse to dismiss Prim e M inister George Pa pandreou on July15, 1965. The ostensible reason w as that he would not approvethe dismissal of Papand reou's conservative and royalist ministerof defense, Petros G aroufalias. The re follow ed m onths of failedattempts by the k ing, designed to effect a split among the C enterUnion parl iam entary deput ies and secure enough votes f romthose dep uties in suppo rt of a c enter-r ight adm inistration thatthe conservatives wou ld also back. Street demonstrations show edwide-spread popular support for George Papandreou, whileA ndreas was ackno w ledged as the leader of the mo re radicalw ing of the C enter Union party .In la te Dec em ber of 1966 A ndreas had a m ajor polit icaldisagreem ent wi th his father over whether the C enter Uniondepu ties should finally agree to support a center-right adm in-istration un der Ioannis Paraskevopoulos. G eorge w as in favorof a com prom ise and bel ieved that the C enter Union shouldsupport Paraskevop oulos and bring an end to the crisis. Andreaswas against com prom ise, and follow ed by forty deputies loyalto him, held out for over ten days. It was the first sign of am ajor division in the ranks of the Ce nter Union. After An dreasretreated the rift was m ended , but it remained as an incident thatdefined A ndreas as m ore radical than h is father.The crisis was to continue through the early months of1967, and it eased off by early April. In February 1 967, A ndreasw as form ally cha rged w ith being imp licated in the so-calledA SPID A case and had to deny the al legations and defend him -self in co urt. He w as also accused of providing favorable treat-m ent to a childhood friend, the architect and planne r Yeo rgiosSkiadaresis. W hile Papan dreou w as able to produce evidencethat exonerated him from the accusations of favoritism , the crudeAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography3


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accusasion of plotting with military officers was more difficultto confront. N othing cam e of the trial. By early A pril, the po lit-ical crisis was abating. The Paraskevop oulos governm ent steppeddow n in ear ly A pril and a con servat ive adm inis t rat ion und erPanayotis Kanellopoulos took over in order to prepare thecountry for elections that were sched uled for May 28, 1967.Those elect ions nev er took place. The colonels s truck inthe early hou rs of Friday, A pril 21, and established a d ictator-ship. A ndreas Pap andreou w as imprisoned after unsuccessfullyt rying to resist arrest that day . He w as taken first to the ho telPikerm i outside A thens, where o ther politicians we re also held,and after tw enty days m oved to the A veroff prison in A thens,w here he w as held in solitary confineme nt for several w eeks. Hewas released in Decem ber 1967, and placed under house arrest.Papan dreou has w rit ten about those events , their backg roundand the first years of the d ictatorship in con siderable detail inhis Democracy at Gunpoint.The colonels regime b ecam e increasingly frustrated by theinternational cam paign for his release that unfolded in Europeand the United States, w here the econom ist John Ga lbraith wasactive and dem anded from President Johnson that he interveneto secure Papan dreou 's release. In order to counter that cam -paign, the regime produced in English-language booklet inA ugust 1967, enti tled simply " A ndreas G eorgiou Papandreou"and published by an organization called the Piraeus YoungScientists A ssociation. The 52-pa ge book let w as devoted toportraying And reas Papandreou as a crypto-com m unist intent onseizing pow er. It concluded thus: "A pril 21st was the steel wallthat was raised by the Arm y and the Peop le, to place in the fardistant past, the deadly dang er which w as overtaking the Gree kNa tion, because of the co m m unists, and principally due to thosestateless, cheap and lowly fellow-travelers, the enemies ofGreece, of America, of NATO and of the West. That is tosay the enem ies of f reedom, at the head o f who m w as, act ingopenly and in conspiracy, on-stage an d o ff-stage, An dreas Pa-pand reou." The junta's obsession with Papandreo u did not endthere. In the so-called d raft constitution they produced they in-cluded a clauses specifically designed for him: person s wh o hadacquired foreign citizenship would not be permitted to keep14OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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their Gree k citizenship even if they had ren ounc ed their foreigncitizenship. A ndreas had renounced his U.S. citizenship wh en heran in the G reek parliam entary elections of 196 4.Y et the regim e w as not able to continue to keep i ts arch-enem y captive. It could il l-afford to displease the U.S. govern-m ent that apparently had b een persuaded by the academ ic com-m unity that it should intervene. C ertainly the intervetion w asdiscreet, but nonetheless as his deportation from G reece w asrum ored, the U.S. State D epartme nt confirm ed in early January,1968 that he w ould be granted a visa if he requested one. Laterthat month Papandreou w as al low ed to leave the country and

he a nd his w ife, Ma rgaret , and their four children trave led toFrance. A new phase of his life was to begin, and he inauguratedi t by d enou ncing the d ictatorship upo n his arrival in Paris onJanuary 18. He de scribed the regime as the m ost oppressiveand d ictatorial one in G reece's history and declared that dem o-crat ic countries had a m oral responsibi li ty to help put an en dto the regime a nd to cease prov iding it with military arm s.Exile and Anti-Dictatorship Struggle, 1968-1974

D uring the five and a half years that elapsed betw een hisdeportation from G reece and his triump hant return, Papandreoureturned to academ e as w ell as becom ing one of the leaders ofthe anti-dictatorship struggle abroad. His father's death onN ovem ber 8 , 1968 only Margaret was a llowed to re turn toA thens for a few hours in order to a t tend the funeral pavedthe w ay for A ndreas to develop even further his ow n polit icalpersonality.Papandreou resum ed his academic career at Y ork Universityin Toro nto w hile also continuing his political activity that in-cluded the establishme nt of an anti-dictatorship m oveme nt, PAK ,as w ell as public appearan ces, speeches an d contacts w ith polit-ical leaders acro ss the globe. A ll of these w ere interrelated. AtYork, where he is remembered by former collegues for thel ively a nd at t im es f iery lectures he d elivered to his s tudents ,he w orked on the socio-econom ic blueprints that he envisionedfor G reece in the future.A ndreas.G. Papandreou: A B rief Political B iography5


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Th e Panhellenic An ti-dictatorship Mo vem ent, know n by itsGreek acronym , PAK, was the precursor of PASO K. PA K wasestablished on F ebruary 27 , 1968 in Stockho lm. Its goals werethe overthrow of the dictatorship and the punishm ent of thoseresponsible for e stablishing it, the release o f all political prisoners,as w ell as the developm ent of a na tional-liberation m ovem entw ith a view of achieving national indep ende nce, popular rule,social justice and dem ocratic processes. Tow ard that purposei t organ ized anti-dictatorship dem onstrat ions and tr ied to ex-pose the undem ocratic and b rutal nature of the regime. A clan-destine branch o f the organization w as formed in G reece. PAK 'slong term g oals included the creation of con ditions that wo uldallow the establishm ent of a dem ocratic and socialist G reece.PA K and PA M, the left-w ing's Panhellenic Liberation M ove-m ent, we re the largest anti-dictatorship organ izations forme dabroad after the A pril 196 7 coup. O ther sma ller organizationswere form ed of course the Com m unist Party, that suffered asplit in A ugust, 1968, was already established abroad be causei t had b een proscribed in G reece since the C ivil W ar in the late1940s.Througho ut this period P apandreou traveled w idely, includ-ing visits to the United States, where he spoke against U.S.foreign policy. Unsym pathetic G reek-based observers have des-cribed his am bivalent relationship to the U.S. as an exam ple ofhis "hypocrisy," but w hat they do not or canno t appreciate i sthat Papandreou's crit icism s wou ld and we re echoed by m anyU.S.-based academ ics at the time of the Vietnam W ar. His firstvisit to the United States was on March 8, 1968. He gave aspeech in W ashington, DC , the next day and criticized the U.S.for recognizing the regim e in A thens and cri ticized N A TO forcontinuing to arm the regim e. He accused the regime of usingtorture and c alled for its interna tional isolation that he saw asa m eans of bringing its end. In another app earance in the UnitedStates that year he addressed a conference in Princeton in D e-cem ber. The co nference w as discussion the U.S. 's image in thew orld and Papand reou took the opp ortunity to claim that theC IA h ad been involved in the A pril coup. The contacts Papan-dreou m ade w ith w orld leaders w ere extensive in this period. Heappeared together with R obert Kenne dy at the press conference1 6OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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at which Ken nedy declared his candidacy before the Dem ocraticC onve ntion in 1968. Papa ndreou established friendships withsocial-dem ocratic leaders such as C hancellor W illy B randt ofG erm any, Swe dish Prim e Minis ter O laf Palme an d A ustrianChancellor Bruno Kreisky.D espite his grow ing stature as an important po litical figure,and de spite his undisputed leadership role in PA K , Papandreoutook ca re to distance h imself from the individually-based initia-t ives that other G reek po liticians w ere taking ag ainst the Jun tain Athens. For exam ple, former prime minister Constantine K a-rama nl is cal led up on the m ili tary to ov erthrow the regime ina statement he issued in Paris in September, 1969, and heoffered to head an interim governm ent. Papandreou w elcom edK aram anlis ' s tatem ent but added that any effort to overthrowthe Junta and established a new p olity should be part of a broade rdevelopm ent involving the res is tance of the G reek people asa who le.Papa ndreo u guided P A K 's anti-dictatorship activities w itha view to anticipating post-dictatorial developm ents in G reece.For exam ple, when P A M formed the N ational Resistance Councilw ith three other anti-dictatorship groups that w ere ideologicallyconserva tive, or centrist, Papa ndreou refused to join beca use hefound that al liance 's m inim um program lacking in terms of astrategy for the post-junta era. In p articular, Papandreo u insistedthat even a minimum common program should come out infavor of allow ing the people to vote on w hether or not to pre-serve the monarchy in Greece after the re-establishment ofdemocracy.W hen the dictatorship collapsed and the transition to dem oc-racy began o n July 24, 1974, Papandreou, who w as in E uropeat the time, called an urgent meeting of PAK m em bers that washeld in Sw itzerland. The m eeting decided that PA K should bedisbanded an d transforme d into a political party in G reece. I tw ould be stating the ob vious to note the significance of PA Kas the precursor to PAS O K . Rather than emerging from politicalactivity by labor unions or splitting aw ay from a m ore radicalcom m unist or socialist party, G reece's "social-dem ocratic" partyw as rooted in wha t was a m i li tant group led by a s ingle indi-vidual and w ith no tradit ion of ex tensive internal dem ocrat icAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography7


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functions because of its nature as an organization fighting aga insta repressive regime. That legacy w as evident in the way PA SO Kfunctioned for very long after PA K disbanded.PASOK in O pposition, 1974-1981

A ndreas returned to a trium phan t reception at A thens air-port on A ugust 16, 1974. Within less than three w eeks he w ouldestablish a new political party, the Pan hellenic Socialist Mov e-ment, PAS OK . The party's showing in the elections of Novem berthat year w ould not be very satisfactory even though it wouldbecome the third largest in the Greek parliament, the V ouli.In the follow ing elections, in 1977, it would do m uch be tter andcom e second w hile its show ing was extrem ely strong in electionsfor m unicipals councils, labor and agricultural unions, profes-sional associat ions and student unions. W hen the third post-dictatorship elections were ca lled in the fall of 1981, PA SO Kw as poised to score a spectacular and historic victory.Papandreou held a m eet ing in a hotel in Athens on .Sep-tem ber 3, 1974, and announ ced the establishm ent of the Pan-hellenic Socialis t Movem ent. It wa s a t im e w hen the po lit icalspectrum in G reece w as being re-defined in the wake of thetransition to dem ocracy. W ithin the next few w eeks C onstantineK aramanlis announced the formation of the N ew D em ocracyparty that was to replace the former conservative party, the ER E,that he had formed back in the m id-1950s. Also, George M avrosannounce d the form at ion of a new centr is t party , the C enterUnion-New Forces which would be renamed Union of theD em ocratic C enter (ED IK ) in February 1976. Meanw hile, thelegalization of the C om m unist Party had p erm itted its reappear-ance as the C om m unist Party of G reece (K K E) along w ith theC om m unist Party of the Inter ior (KK E-E S) consis ting of theformer mem bers who broke aw ay in 1968. C learly the appearanceof PA SO K was the m ost significant new element in the "m ain-stream " of the G reek political spectrum : i t represented the ir-reversible split in the old Center Union tha t had crystallized after1967 , and i t also represented the f irst appearanc e of a c enter-left, social-dem ocratic party in G reece. Judging by PA SO K 's18OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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founding charter, the "Declaration of September 3rd, 1974," thenew party w as to the left of most European social dem ocraticparties. In term s of do m estic affairs it outlined the so-c alled"third road toward soc ialism" that avoided the errors of westernEuropean social democracy and of soviet style socialism. In termsof foreign policy it called for G reece's w ithdrawl from N A TOand from the E uropean C om m unity and an orientation towardthe non-aligned " third" w orld.By 1977 it becam e clear that PASO K wo uld be willing tom odify its initial program considerably in order to m ake thetype of electoral impact that it was den ied because of its radical-ism in 1974. Influenced by the enthusiasm the Sep temb er de-claration h ad gen erated, Papand reou ran a cam paign repletew ith radical rhetoric. It was epitom ized by the slogan "S ocial-ism on the 18th" (a phrase that rhym es in Greek), which wassupposed to m ean that socialism would be established the d ayafter the first post-junta elections that were held on N ovem ber17, 1974. Instead it was the p hrase that com poser Mikis Theo-dorakis uttered that was endorsed by the electorate: "Either Ka-raman lis or the tanks." Unsure of how far the process of transi-tion to dem ocracy had traveled since late July, the people gaveK aram anlis ' conservative party a m assive 54.37% of the voteand the Center Union-New Forces 20.42%. PASO K w as limitedto 13.58% of the vote (666,413 ballots), som ething that trans-lated into a mea ger twelve deputies in the 300-m em ber par-liament.

Papandreou did not let that blow w eaken h is control of theparty or cramp his political style. He retained the rad-ical rhetoric as a parliamentary w eapon aga inst the conserva tivesand the insipid C enter Union that wa s the m ajor oppositionparty, even though he w as also prepared to m oderate his posi-t ions w ith a view of increasing the party 's pow er base. Thatpolicy was no t as contradictory as it may appea r superficially.The electorate had chosen to vote for Karamanlis because it sawhim a nd the con servative political forces as the be st guaranteeaga inst a return to dictatorial rule. The large size of the vo tein favor of Karam anlis was not an endorsement of conservativepolicies. Papandreou thus was able to ham m er awa y at the"right," at the Am ericans and, w hen the opp ortunity arose, ex-A ndreas G. Papandreou: A B rief Political B iography9


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ploit the fears of Turkish aggression by em ploying m uch m oreradical nationalist language than that of the governm ent. Perhapsthe best exam ple of his bold and aggressive style in parliam entcam e in 1976 d uring a G reco-Tu rkish cris is over r ights in theA egean S ea. Papandreo u called for a Turkish vessel to be sunkif it continued its presence in G reek territorial w aters. He wa sto explain later that it was a sy m polic call for a m ore assertiveG reek stance (the vessel was unarm ed). Meanw hile, he carriedon as party leader without yielding to internal rivals or op-ponents. C ritics within PASO K were silenced or expelled, as wasthe case with the mem bers of the anti-dictatorship group Dim o-kratiki A m yna (Dem ocratic Defense) who had joined PA SO Kin D ecem ber of 1974 they were expelled in early 1975. Theimp ortant point here is that both the con tent of the 19 74 de-claration and the subsequent mov e to m ore m oderate positionswere enginereed and shaped by A ndreas Papandreou at nopoint in that proc ess did i t appear that his role as leader w asunde r dispute. He w as rapidly establishing his reputation ascharismatic f igure w ith an increasingly popu lar im age am ongthe electorate.The 197 7 elections, held on Nov em ber 20th, w ere a minortriump h for PA SOK because i t outflanked the C enter Party andbecam e the second largest party in parliamen t, doubling its per-centage of the popular vote. The elections were w on again byN ew D em ocracy, gaining 41.84% of the vote , a considerableloss, m atched by that suffered by the C enter Party w hich sliddown to 11.95% of the vo te , on ly about 2% m ore than w hatthe C om m unis t Par ty of G reece (KK E) had ga ined . PASO K ,with an impressive 25.34% of the vote (1,300,025 ballots)served n otice that it was ab out to challenge fo r pow er in thenext elections. Papand reou used the parliam entary pod ium ablyto strengthen his position as a ch arismatic leader, a great oratorand a bove all the o nly political figure that could possibly un-seat Karam anlis from pow er. Indeed , in May, 1980, Karam anlischose to step down as prim e m inister in order to becom e pres-ident of the G reek Re public, and he w as replaced as prime m in-ister and leader of N ew D em ocracy by Y eorgios Rallis . But i tw as Papand reou w ho w as increasingly in the limelight.20OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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Prim e M inister, 198 1-1989Papa ndreou's greatest triumph ca m e w ith his victory in thethird post - junta elect ions that w ere held o n O ctober 18, 1981with a historic result, a PASO K victory. Thus, the first center-leftpolitical party and c ertainly the first to describe itself as social-ist won elections in G reece and w ould form a governm ent. Inretrospect the mom ent wa s of tremendous significance for w hatis represented sy m bolically rather than in terms of any sort ofpolitical shift in the way G reece w ould be governed. PA SO K 'sand P apand reou's victory signaled that political pow er w ould

be exercised in the nam e of the "left," or perhaps the non-con -servative wo rld, m ade up of different generations, ranging fromthose who were o n the left during the 1940s over to those w hohad o ppose d the dictatorship. For al l those disparate groupsPA SO K 's victory was their ow n victory, the mo m ent of politicalascendancy for wh ich they had struggled and w aited patientlyfor years. A nd the m an w ho brought i t about was A ndreas Pa-pandreou. C onscious of the broad suppo rt he had m ustered, heran in the elections no t by calling for socialism but for "C hange"(Allaghi), and w ith a program that appealed essentially to thevast lower m iddle-class stratum of G reek society.PASOK gained 48.06% of the vote (2,034,496 ballots)that gave it 172 seats in the Vouli; New D emocracy gained35.86% , whi le the third par ty wa s the K K R w ith a relativelyimpressive 10.92% of the vote. By that time the C enter partyhad split into various sections, none of w hich succeede d in gain-ing much over 1% of the vote. PASOK's performance wasstrong throug hout the co untry. in form ing his cabinet, Papa n-dreou retained the defense portfolio for himself. O bviously them ilitary w ere of special concern to h im, and h is decision to takethe responsibility of m inister of defense w as designed no t onlyto acquire direct contact w ith the m ili tary leadership b ut alsoto assure the m ilitary as a w hole of his interest in their affairs.O ne should bear in m ind that the m ili tary leadership w as nolonger monolithically right-wing; rather, it included sup-porters of New Dem ocracy and of PASO K . By appointing thoseloyal to him in key positions and preserving the extensivefinancial and other privileges the m ilitary enjoyed, Pa pandreouA ndreas G. Papandreou: A B rief Political B iography1


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had nothing to fear in term s of m oves against his governm ent.Other key m inisterial appointments included A postolos Lazaris(coordinat ion) , Aga m enon K outsogiorgas (m inister to theprime m inister), Ioannis C haralam bopo ulos (foreign a ffairs),Mano lis D rettakis (econo m ics), Geo rgios G ennim atas (inte-rior), An tonis Tritsis (urban p lanning), K ostas Sim itis (agri-culture), An astasios Pep onis (industry) and Melina Mercou ri(culture). Thanks to frequent reshuffling o f his ministers, Pa-pandreou ensured that none of them stayed long eno ugh in aparticular post from w hich they could build a pow er base andperhaps threaten his predom inance over the government.

Papa ndreou introduced a broa d range of political reform saimed at enhan cing citizenship rights and equality as w ell associal reform s that benefited his electoral base, low incom egroups and the lower middle-class strata. Legislation w as en -acted to bar discrimination based on gende r, religion or socialclass and the "spec ial laws" that we re im plemented during theCivil War giving extra powers to the state were abo lished. Also,the contribution of all those w ho participated in the w artim eresistance was officially recognized by the state until then, per-sons who had been m em bers of left-wing resistance groups hadnot had their role ackno wledged form ally. Steps were taken toestablish the equality of w om en in the eye of the law, abortionrights w ere ex panded , civil ma rriage w as introduced; finally,mea sures were designed to strengthen workers and farm ers or-ganizations.In terms of foreign policy, Papandreou m aintained his anti-European and anti-Am erican stance but took no steps to im ple-m ent it. At m ost these were tactical mo ves designed to bringabout a m ore equitable relationship between G reece and theEuropeans and the Am ericans respectively. Yet the enthusiasmthe quasi-nationalist language raised w as very real and spok eto the beliefs of a large part of G reek soc iety that felt that theW est had turned its back to G reece during the dictatorship and

during the Cyprus crisis of 1974. To the ex tent that Papandreoudescribed his foreign po licy positions as evoking "national pride,"he h imself was signalling the sym bolic co ntent of his foreignagenda. The issue of withdrawing from the European C om -munity and from NA TO was dropped. Papandreou told the first22.O U R N A L O F T H E H E L L EN IC D IA S P O R A


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PA SO K C ongress that was held in 1984 that withdrawal from theEuropean C ommunity would be detrimen tal to the Greek econom yand also that w i thdraw al f rom N A TO w ould take place onlyw hen the time w as right. Regiona l and no n-aligned initiativesw ere taken up instead. Steps w ere taken to try and establish anuclear-free zone in the Ba lkans. He m aintained his invo lmen tw ith the non-aligned w orld and in 1982 he p articipated in the"Initiative of the 6 for Peac e," an attem pt to bring about closeEast-W est contacts with a view of ending the C old W ar . The"six," w ere Papa ndreou a long with Mex ico's president, Miguelde la M adrid, Argen tina's president, R aul A lfonsin, Tanza nia'spresident, Julius N yerere, and Prime Ministers O laf Paline o fSw eden and Ind ira G hand i of India. More con troversially, Pa-pandreou fostered closer relations betwee n G reece and C uba asw ell as the Palestine Liberation O rganization and he m et withY assir A rafat in A thens.In early 1985 Papandreou surprised the Greek politicalw orld by dec lining to support President aram anlis for a secondterm, successfully installing a c andidate of h is choice and thenproceeding to win the general election in the summer fairlycom fortably. The president of the republ c is elected by the G reekpar liament , and without PA SO K 's support K aramanlis wouldhave been unable to continue for a second term. Instead ofbacking Karam anlis, Papandreou announced that PASO K wouldsupport Judge C hristos Sartzetakis, who ad be en the prosecutorin the case concerning the assassinate n of left-wing deputyC hristos Lam brakis in 196 3: That incid nt, on w hich the storyand m ovie "Z" were based, had been a m ajor blow to the K a- 'ram anlis gove rnm ent at the time and c ontributed indirectly tothe C enter Un ion's electoral victory later that yea r. Sartzetakiswa s duly.elected by the PA SOK ma jority in the Vouli while Pa-pandreou also int roduced con st itutional ame ndm ents that reduced the pow ers of the president. The se were app roved by theparliament in Marc h, 1986. Meanw hile, in the June, 1985, elec-tions, PASOK was victorious, gaining 45.82% of the vote(2,916,450 b allots) against New D em ocracy's 40.85% and theK KE 's 9.89% .Papan dreou's second term as prime m inister w as an event-ful one and i t gradu ally led to the erosion of h is own and hisAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief. Political Biography3


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party's popularity. It was m arked b y a series of rightward p olicyshifts Dom estically, PAS O K introduced an e conom ic austerityprogram in 1985 designed to reduce inflation and the s ize ofthe public debt. The m easures brought vehe m ent protests on thepart of labor and e m ployee unions and tensions within the party.The "s tabil izat ion program " e arned praise from internat ionalm onetary organizations. In foreign po licy, Pap andreo u initiatedsteps to integrate Greec e m ore fully within the European C om -munity and he also took steps to bring Greece closer to theUnited States by nego tiating defen se agreem ents, purchasingfighter planes and collaborating against the threat of terrorism,issues that had ma rred G reek-U.S. relations during his first term.Ty pically, the agreements w ith the U.S. were p ortrayed as favor-ing G reece and tha t thus vindicated the struggle for Gree k in-dependence from foreign pressure.G reco-Turkish relations was another sphere whe re Papan-dreou m ade spectacu lar policy u-turns. In March, 1987, he brough tG reece to what appeared to be the brink of w ar with Turkey inresponse to the differences of bo th countries over m aritime ter-ritorial rights in the A egean Sea area. F ollow ing the interventionof the European C om m unity and the U.S. , Papandreou backeddow n from his "nothing to neg ot iate" posi tion and agreed toregular low-level G reco-Turkish m eetings that led to h is meetingw ith Tu rkey's president, Turgut Ozal, in January 1968, at Da vos,Sw itzerland, during an international conference on eco nom ic af-fairs. The so-ca lled "spirit of D avos" led now here as G reek andTurkish positions quickly hardened ag ain, and Pap andreo u pub-licly adm itted that 'the m eeting wa s an error.The catalyst that accelerated the errosion of his and hisparty's popularity w as rum ors about his involveme nt in financialscandals and new s that he w as having an e xtra-m arital affair ;m eanw hile, that sam e yea r, 1988, he experienced serious healthproblem s and underw ent open heart surgery in London in Sep-temb er. The opp osition press published acc usations that Papan-dreou and other leading PASO K m em bers were connected witha m ulti-mill ion drachm a em bezzlem ent of the Bank of C rete ,engineered by the B ank's owner, Yiorgos K oskotas. It w as saidthat he orde red pub lic corp orations to transfer their holdings tothat bank and the interest was skimm ed off for the benefi t of24OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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PA SO K leaders . W hile Papandreou s trongly denied those al-legations, he did not hide his affair with Dimitra Liani, anO lym pic Airway s f light at tendant w ho w as hal f his age. Shew as at his side du ring his hospital ization in L ond on an d shestepped off the plane w ith him w hen he returned to A thens.Th e eight-year rule of Papan dreou w as about to end in-auspiciously, but that shou ld not detract from the significan tchanges i t brought to G reece. Papandreou gained pow er w ithperhaps the m ost radical agenda ev er to propel a party into officein twentieth century G reece, and he gradually m odified his ideo-logical stance, though no t before introducing a series of im por-tant changes in G reek society, not least of wh ich was giving avoice and representation to a series of social and political groupsthat had be en left out of the political m ainstream a fter the en dof the Civil W ar. Man y of his innov ations could hav e been in-troduced by a m ore enlightened right-w ing, but how ever it canbe defined, Greek conservatism w as certainly not "enlightened"at the t im e. Thus i t w as left to PA SO K to im plem ent policiesthat made G reek society m ore l iberal and equitable. W hat layben eath the an ti-impe rialist rhetoric and the redu ction of do-m estic politics to a choice betw een the forces of progress andthe old right was, in essence , a social-dem ocratic agenda tailoredto the G reek rea lities, replete w ith its delivery and im pleme nta-t ion by a leader who com bined populism and charism a. It wasa t im e of m ass pol it ical m eet ings and of catchy s logans, andthere was no one who could perform better as an orator infront of a crowded city square than Andreas Papandreou.Defeat and Crises, 1989-1992

Election ye ar 1989 brough t a trying period for Papandreo u:he w as defeated at the polls , his health wo rsened and ac cusa-t ions ab out his involvem ent in financial and other sca ndals in-creased until he w as formally charged w ith being responsible forwidespread telephone tapping enacted b y the state-controlled tele-phone com pany O TE , and for the em bezzlem ent at the Bank ofCrete. Just before the elections were held on June 18, 1987,Papa ndreou secu red a divorce end ing his thirty-six-yea r longAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography5


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marriage to Margaret Papandreou. On July 13th he marriedD imitra Liani, who took the nam e D imitra Liani-Papandreoubut soon began being called "M imi" by the press .C onsidering the apparent decline of Papandreou's and PA -SO K 's s tanding, the defeat in 1989 w as not that great, indeedit yielded a hung pa rliame nt and led to a ten-m onth period ofcoalition government it took New D emoc racy two more generalelections, held in N ovem ber 1989 and in A pril 1990 , for i t tosecure the n arrow est of m ajori ties in parl iam ent. In the firstof three elections that were held in the space of ten m onths, NewD em ocracy cam e f irs t w i th 44.25% of the vote , a result that

gave it 145 seats in parliam ent, six short of form ing a m ajority.PASOK held its own by receiving 39.15% of the vote (125seats), so i t wa s up to the third largest party, the Sinaspism os(an all iance between the KK E and the sm aller Com munist Partyof the Interior that gained 1 3.12% of the vote) to decide w hoto back. In w hat w as an ex traordinary and his toric mo ve, theSinaspismos formed what w as described as a "co-government"with New D em ocracy. Meanw hile, Papandreou fell il l and w ashospitalized.The new right-left governm ent, led by a N ew D em ocracym em ber Tzan is Tzan netakis 'but not the party leader Co nstanti-nos M itsotakis, took a num ber of initiatives designe d to initiateproceedings against Papandreou and the other PA SO K leadersw ho w ere im pl icated in the Ba nk of C rete and the telephon etapping "scandals ." There w ere a series of tense votes in par-liament , the last of wh ich wa s in Septem ber, 1989, and w ithw hich parliam ent decided that a special court w ould deal withthe charges against Papa ndreou an d his m inisters. Papa ndreouconceded that he w as responsible for the Ba nk of C rete scandalin a political sense but de nied that he w as involved personally.Unde r those circum stances of p olitical polarization and dif-ficulties for Papandreou, PASO K faced two m ore general elec-tions. In the first it yet again he ld its ow n in the elections thatwere held on November 5th in order to resolve the politicalimpasse. PA SO K received 40.6% of the vote again, coming as t rong second to N ew D em ocracy, who se 46.1% st il l did notprovide i t with a parliam entary m ajority. Instead o f being re-solved the impasse w as m ade m ore com plicated, and a three-26OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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cornered N ew Dem ocracy-Sinaspismos-PASOK coalition govern-m ent was ev entually form ed w ith a non -partisan figure as primem inister, the econom ist X enophon Zolotas. There w as no p olitic-al respite for Papandreo u in the ye ar that followed . The gov ern-m ent im passe w as finally resolved w ith new e lections that wereheld on A pril 8, 1990, and at which PA SOK again came secondbut with 38.6% of the vote, a small decrease by two percentagepoints but large enough for New D em ocracy to win 150 seatsin the parliament by gaining 46.8% of the vote. The defectionof one deputy f rom the sm all DIA N A par ty over to New D e-m ocracy gave i t a precarious but sufficient m ajority of one inthe 300-me m ber parliam ent. Papandreou's great personal rival,C onstantinos Mitsotakis, becam e prime m inister. This was a p e-riod of retrenchment for Papandreou, now the leader of theoppo sition. Ironically, he wa s unable to gain any political capitalfrom h is decision to have PA SO K join the Socialist International,the organization of social-dem ocratic parties that he h ad ea rlierconsidered too con servative for his radical part. New spapers re-ported that at the International's mee ting that wa s held in C airoin May, 1990, man y international leaders ignored P apandreo u.Papan dreou's personal standing an d h is political capital im -proved m arkedly in 1992, paving the w ay for his astonishingpol it ical com eback the following yea r . The nine-mo nth longBank o f Crete scandal trial wa s concluded on January 16 , 1992.He had refused to attend, claim ing that the charges w ere polit-ically m otivated and that by refusing to be present he w as guard-ing the legi tima cy o f the prim e m inister 's office. He w as ac-quit ted in the end, but two leading P A SO K m em bers, D imitrisTsov olas and Yeorg ios Petsos, w ere found guilty and receivedl ight sentences. In May, the N ew D em ocracy governm ent de-cided not to go through with the other trial that would haveconsidered the charges that Papand reou had been involved intelephone tapping. His popularity began clim bing back up bothdome stically and abroad as w itnessed by the w armer reception hereceived at ano ther Socialist International mee ting. Mean w hile,N ew D emo cracy under M itsotakis began experiencing internaldivisions prom pted by the break up of Y ugoslavia and the de-visionof the leaders of the Y ugoslav Re publ ic of M acedoniato seek self-determination and statehood und er the nam e "Mace-A ndreas G. Papandreou: A B rief Political Biography7


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don ia." Th is, coupled by the new state 's sym bols and constitu-t ional clauses that sounded irredentist was c onsidered by m anyGreeks as a direct threat to the integrity and security of thearea of Macedonia in nor thern G reece. N ew D em ocracy 's in-ternal divisions raised the possibility tha t it would lose its narrowm ajori ty in the V ouli. Suddenly i t was not Papa ndreou facinga m ajor polit ical cris is , but Mitsotakis . Papand reou h ad donem uch mo re than survive.Prime Minister Again, 1993-1996

W hen Ne w D em ocracy lost its narrow one deputy majorityin parliam ent in July, 1993, the scene w as set for Papand reou tostage his tr ium phant return to powe r. Th at Papandreo u couldrebound is a tes timony not only to his own abiding ch arism aand popularity, it is also proof of the polarization of Greekpolitics and the rootedness of PASOK in the minds of allthose opposed to the right. The re sults of the elections of O ctober10 show ed an impressive victory for Pa uandreou. Looking con-s iderably older and m uch m ore frail compa red to his appear-ance in 1981. Papandreou nevertheless must have savored them om ent since it represented a rehabilitation as well as a triumph.W ith 46.8% of the vote, PA SO K took 170 seats in the Vouli andsecured a comfortable majority. Papandreou had turned thetables on Mitsotakis, whose N ew D em ocracy party slid to 39.2%of the vote. PASO K 's percentage of the vote was the same thatN ew D em ocracy had secured in the previous elections, givingi t 150 o ut of the 300 sea ts in the V ouli. In orde r to help itselfthe next time around, New D em ocracy m ade a few alterationsto the electoral law that favored w hichever party ca m e first .It was because of those changes that PASO K was able to securea com fortable parliamentary m ajority w ith only the sam e per-centage of the vote.

W eakened by his heal th problems, Papandreou appearedto be far less actively involved in runn ing the gove rnm ent, al-though he retained a high profile in the con duct of foreign pol-icy . New D em ocracy had lost its sl im par liam entary m ajoritydue to serious in-party divisions ov er G reece's foreign p olicy28OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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toward the newly established Republic of Macedonia in theformer Y ugoslavia. It would not have been Pap andreou's style tolose control of his deputies over a sensitive na tionalist question andindeed he ha ndled G reece's att itude tow ard the new state in asufficiently dy nam ic manner so as not to be outflanked by any-one w ithin his party or am ong his opponents . He im posed anem bargo on the R epublic of Mac edonia in February 1994, despitethe protests of the Europe an Union. Th at policy ev entually per-suaded the Re public's leadership to mak e som e conce ssions ontheir choice of sym bols and on w hat the G reeks considered ir-redentist and threatening po licies tow ards them ; the two sidessigned an "interim agreemen t" in September, 1995, somethingthat represented a significant de-esca lation of the tension betwee nthem . Papandreou also took up the issue of C yprus and tooksteps to strengthen G reco-C yp riot relations. In A pril 1994, Pa-pandreou m ade an official visit to the United States and m et withPresident C l inton at the W hite House, where he had bee n anofficial guest thir ty years ago w hen his father G eorge Pap an-dreou ha d m et President Johnson o n a s im ilar visit . Th e threedecade s that had elapsed had w i tnessed an increasingly a nt i-A m erican stance by Papan dreou wh ich, nevertheless, had beenreplaced by a pragm atic and eventually bu sinesslike co llabora-t ion w ith the U nited S tates . Th e pu rsuit of incom e po licies tocom bat inflation do m estically a nd m oves tow ards privatizationw ere ad ditional signs that little w as left of Papan dreou's olderradicalism.

Pap and reou's poor hea lth and its political implications be-cam e a m ajor concern after he took pow er in 1993. There wasa health scare during his first trip abroad to a Euro pean Unionsumm it m eet ing in Brussels in D ecem ber . He did not appearat an official dinner, reportedly be cause of a m ild case o f foodpoisoning. A mo nth later, governm ent representatives strenuouslydenied reports that he had undergo ne m edical exam inations onan official visit to Syria and Jord an. Another case o f food poison-ing was appa rently the reason w hy he h ad to be rushed back toA thens from the is land of Patm os in Septem ber 1995. As theailing Papan dreou be cam e less and less involved in running thegovernm ent, his new w ife, Dim itra, playe d an increasingly im-portant role, something that caused a sharp backlash. Even thoughAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography9


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Papandreou m ade few appearances in parliament and at cabinetm eetings , he refused to nam e a deputy . Ins tead he nam ed hisw ife as the "d irector of the prim e m inister 's office," in otherw ords his appointed representative. W ith the help of a grow ingentourage of supporters drawn from various echelons of thegovernment and of PA SOK , Mrs. Liani-Papandreou became moreand m ore politically pow erful. Her r ise antago nized other es-tablished power groups within the party and it prompted avicious sm ear cam paign by Yeorgios K ouris, the publisher of theA thens-based daily Avriani. In the past its tabloid-style journal-ism ha d epitom ized the populist ant i-right-w ing rhetoric thatPA SO K had used to its advantage. Now it turned against Pa-pandreou w ith a ven geance. The rest of the press was alreadyreport ing on the suspicious provenan ce of an exp ensive vi l lathat Papandreou had built for him and his new wife. Avrianiw as not co ntent to m ilk the so-ca lled " pink vil la" sc anda l, i tproceeded to publish nude pho tographs of a y oung M s. Lianiobv iously designed to b lock her po lit ical career as w ell as toem barrass Papandreou.Papandreou wa s saved from becom ing the hero of a mediaprom oted poli tical soap op era, with his new w ife starring asa G reek E va Peron f igure, when his health deteriorated sud-denly and he was hospitalized in Athens on N ovem ber 20, 1995,with pneum onia, and serious breathing and kidney p roblems. Forthe next few weeks G reek politics revolved around the medical bul-letins that tersely describe d the prim e m inister 's battle to stayalive. Th e press carried long an d de tailed explanations of thehealth problem s the prime m inister faced. Te levision cam erasperm anently stationed in the hospital's lobby record ed the m ed-ical ups and dow ns as w ell as the poli tical new s as the entirePA SO K leadership shuttled daily back and forth from the hos-pital . Papandreou survived a serious d eterioration of his con-dition around mid-De cem ber and appea red to be gradually pul-ling out of danger but rem ained unde r continuous supervisionat the hospital.Meanw hile, speculation about whether or when he w ould stepdown continued unabated there were no constitutional provisionsfor a successor to a prime m inister other than w hen the officeholder resigned or passed away. N or had Papandreou nam ed a30OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA


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deputy prime m inister w ho w ould take ove r in his absence, nordid he ap pear to w ant to resort to such a solution. Increasinglythe PAS O K leadership becam e concerned w ith the im pact ofthe polit ical vacuum created by Papa ndreou's incapa citation.Finally, on Janu ary 15, 1996 , And reas Papa ndreou , still in thehospital, resigned h is position as prime m inister, retaining, how -ever, his position as president of P AS OK . A spectacular politicalcareer had com e to an end. A new era in w hich "techno-pols"w ere to rep lace charisma tic leaders a nd b usinesslike e fficiencywas to replace ideology was com ing to G reece as it had com e toother countries, especially the Southern E uropean o nes that hadexperienced sim ilar political developme nts over the last decad esof the twentieth century. As the old era fades into memory,one cannot but remem ber the way P apandreou dom inated andshaped it in G reece.T he End : January -June, 1996

Papandreou w alked out of the ho spital on M arch 21st andw ent hom e to Ekali , a northern suburb of Athens, from w herehe w ould continue his recuperation as well as begin to reasserthim self politically. It w as another v ictory for him, becau se hehad d efied the odds an d survived a m ajor heal th crisis; but i tw ould be the last time he w ould be seen in public. He wa s toremain in constant medical supervision and his politicalactivities were restricted to meetings at home. In any case, he wasno longer shou ldering the burde ns of public office. D ays afterhe had res igned in January, PA SO K 's par liamentary deputiesm et and elected a new leader who autom aticaly becam e prim em inister. Papand reou had refused to take s ides in the contestw hich duly saw the " technocrat" Simit is w in over the "partycandidate" Akis Tsohatzopoulos and Gerasimos A rsenis who w assaid to stand some where between the other two candidates. A l-though Sim itis had sat at Papandreou's side w hen he issued the"3rd of Septem ber D eclaration" in 1974, he had often disagreedw ith Papa ndreou an d had resigned as industry m inister a fewm onths earlier, disagreeing with P apandreou's econom ic policies.Papan dreou kept up appea rances for the sake of party unity butAndreas G. Papandreou: A Brief Political Biography1


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did not disclose his views about whether or not Simitis oughtto be elected leader of PA SO K at its forthcoming congress whichPapandreou indicated he w anted to address. He wa s graduallybecoming m ore politically active de spite being h ouse-bound andreceiving serious medical treatment. He held informal andformal m eetings w ith leading m em bers of his party and in lateMay he received a foreign vis itor : Yassir A rafat. I t appearedthat Papan dreou w as seriously preparing for the upcom ing PA-SO K c ongress and hav ing regular m eetings with his closest col-laborators. W ould the C ongress be a v ictory for the Simitis wingof the party or the party organizat ion w ing, and ho w w ouldthe L iani-Papandreou fact ion fare? R um ors we re r ife , fueledby the conv entional wisdom that in co ntrast to the pa rliamentarydeputies, the rank and file of the party were p resume d to be lesslikely to autom atically suppo rt Simitis.

Papandreou was feeling relatively well on June 22;he had not had a fever for several days and he was in highspirits. A g athering of family m em bers, doctors and close col-laborators gradually thinned out and a late fish dinner wasserved, after which he talked politics before retiring, after1:00 a.m. Not long after that, the night nurse noticed thatsomething was amiss and alerted the rest of the house. Thew orld w as soon to learn that Andreas Papandreou ha d died inthe early hours of Sunda y, June 23, at the age of 77.

3 2OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA

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