Parliamentary elections were held in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

on 11 May 1958.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p830 The result was a second consecutive victory for

Konstantinos Karamanlis Konstantinos G. Karamanlis (, ; 8 March 1907 – 23 April 1998) was a Greek statesman who was the four-time Prime Minister of Greece and two-term president of the Third Hellenic Republic. A towering figure of Greek politics, his political caree ...

and his

National Radical Union The National Radical Union ( (ΕΡΕ), (ERE)) was a Greek political party formed in 1956 by Konstantinos Karamanlis, mostly out of the Greek Rally party. History ERE was a conservative, right-wing party, which also had some prominent centris ...

, which won 171 of the 300 seats in Parliament.

Background

Karamanlis decided to call for early elections, after some of the most prominent members of the

defected from the party, including George Rallis and . Although Karamanlis could have a parliamentary majority, he preferred to go for elections, in order to achieve a renewed public support. The pretext of the defection was a new electoral law that Karamanlis passed. Rallis was opposed to the law, thinking that it is going to be extremely favorable for the United Democratic Left, a party believed to be linked with the then-banned

Communist Party of Greece The Communist Party of Greece (, ΚΚΕ; ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece. It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (SEKE) and adopted its current name in Novem ...

Results

The outcome of the results proved that Rallis' "fears" were justified. The United Democratic Left (EDA) became the second biggest party, defeating a divided centre.

Aftermath

Just after the elections Karamanlis formed a new government, taking back in his party the defectors. The unexpected rise of EDA, barely nine years after the end of the Greek Civil War, sent alarms through the right-wing establishment, and measures were taken to combat the emergent "communist threat", including the division of the large urban electoral districts of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens city centre along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf in the Ath ...

and

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

so that the left-voting areas would be separated (forming the

Athens B Athens B (Athens Beta; ) was a parliamentary constituency in Attica represented in the Hellenic Parliament. It covered a large part of urban area of Athens outside the Municipality of Athens, which forms the Athens A constituency. It was establi ...

, Piraeus B, etc. constituencies), as well as the establishment of a dedicated domestic security agency, the General Directorate of National Security.

References

{{Greek elections Parliamentary elections in Greece

Parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

1950s in Greek politics

Konstantinos Karamanlis