Konstantinos Karamanlis

Konstantinos G. Karamanlis (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Γ. Καραμανλής, pronounced [konstaˈdinos karamanˈlis]; 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, serving in the former role from 1955 to 1963 and from 1974 to 1980. A towering figure of Greek politics, his political career spanned portions of seven decades, covering much of the latter half of the 20th century.

Born near Serres in Macedonia, Karamanlis practiced law until his election to the Hellenic Parliament in 1936 as a member of the conservative People's Party. Rising through the ranks of Greek politics after World War II, Karamanlis became Minister of Labour in 1947, and in 1952 he was named Minister for Public Works in Alexandros Papagos's Greek Rally administration. He was appointed prime minister by King Paul of Greece after Papagos's death in 1955. During his first term, he applied a program of rapid industrialization, heavy investment on infrastructure and improvement on agricultural production, which led to the post-war Greek economic miracle. He also implemented the extension of full voting rights to women, which had stood dormant since 1952. In foreign affairs, he pursued an aggressive policy toward Greek membership in the European Economic Community (EEC), and abandoned the government's previous strategic goal for enosis (the unification of Greece and Cyprus) in favour of Cypriot independence. Re-elected three times, electoral victories in 1956 and 1961 were marred by controversy and political division.

In 1963, Karamanlis resigned following a disagreement with King Paul amidst spiralling political crises in Greece. He spent the next eleven years in self-imposed exile in Paris, resigning from the leadership of the National Radical Union after defeat in the 1963 elections, while the country fell under military dictatorship after the 1967 coup d'état. After the fall of the junta in 1974, Karamanlis was recalled to Athens to assume interim premiership. This period, known as the Metapolitefsi, saw the country's transition to a pluralist democracy, which resulted in the decriminalisation of the Communist Party. His new party, New Democracy, won a commanding victory in the November 1974 elections, which were followed by a plebiscite that abolished the monarchy and established the Third Hellenic Republic.