1963 Greek legislative election

Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 3 November 1963. They resulted in a narrow victory for the Center Union of Georgios Papandreou after three consecutive victories of Konstantinos Karamanlis and his National Radical Union and after 11 years, during which the conservative parties (Greek Rally and its successor, the National Radical Union) ruled Greece.

After he resigned, Karamanlis demanded immediate elections, wanting to take advantage of the timing. Nevertheless, King Paul I preferred to appoint an interim government, led by one of Karamanlis' closest colleagues, Panagiotis Pipinelis, whose role would be to pass a new electoral law, accepted by the main party of the opposition, and to put under control the political unrest. Nevertheless, Pipinelis' government failed to present a worthy work and it resigned, under Georgios Papandreou's arrows. Then, the King, under the pressure of Papandreou and disregarding Karamanlis' instructions, appointed a new "neutral" interim government, which would carry out the elections. This government, fiercefully criticised by Karamanlis, was led by the president of the Court of Cassation.

Because of the slim difference of votes between the two biggest parties and, also, because of the electoral system, no party managed to have an absolute majority in the Parliament. In his later personal notes, as presented in his archives, Constantine Karamanlis justifies his party's narrow defeat with the following arguments:
His party underestimated the people's fatigue, after so many years of National Radical Union's government and after so many months of political unrest. His party had lost the right timing, which slipped away from it just after Pipinelis' government resignation and the appointment of a new interim government. The interim government, which conducted the elections, was not really neutral, but it favored in various backhanded ways the Center Union. The United Democratic Left (ΕΔΑ) favored the Center Union, convincing a limited but important number of its supporters to vote for Georgios Papandreou. His Party should have shaped an alliance with the conservative Progressive Party of Spyros Markezinis. An agreement of this kind would have resulted in a victory of the right wing alliance. Just after the elections, Karamanlis left for Paris, with his wife. Noteworthy, he had also left for France, just after his resignation, but he returned, in order to lead his party in the elections.

The outcome of the elections consisted a deadlock. Constantine Karamanlis proposed the formation of a new interim "neutral" government, whose duty would be to conduct new elections. However, Georgios Papandreou was outspoken about his right to form a government of himself, in order to carry out the new elections. King Paul I followed Papandreou's instructions, giving him the order to form an interim government, whose role would be to lead the country to new elections. Karamanlis questioned the constitutionality of the King's decision, but, instead of insisting in his opinion, he preferred to resign and leave the country. Following his proposal, the party he founded, the National Radical Union chose Panagiotis Kanellopoulos as his successor.