Metapolitefsi

1974 Greek transition to democracy

The Metapolitefsi (Μεταπολίτευση, , "regime change") was a period in modern Greek history from the fall of the Ioannides military junta of 1973–74 to the transition period shortly after the 1974 legislative elections. The metapolitefsi was ignited by the liberalisation plan of military dictator Georgios Papadopoulos, which was opposed by prominent politicians such as Panagiotis Kanellopoulos and Stephanos Stephanopoulos, and halted by the massive Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military junta. The counter coup of Dimitrios Ioannides, and his coup d'etat against President of Cyprus Makarios III, which led to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, brought the dictatorship down. The appointment of the interim "national unity government", led by former prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, saw Karamanlis legalise the Communist Party (KKE) and found the center right but still parliamentary (non military) New Democracy party, which won the elections of 1974 by a landslide.

Following a rigged referendum in late July 1973 that ratified the Greek Constitution of 1973 by a large majority, under which the Greek monarchy was abolished and Greece became a presidential republic, Georgios Papadopoulos, the head of the military junta that took power in 1967, became President of Greece. These excesses had the effect of further undermining his credibility and the seriousness of his regime both at home and abroad. Feeling confident of his grasp on power, he requested the resignation of the 13 military men in his cabinet, dissolved the "revolutionary council" which had ruled Greece since the beginning of the coup, However, under the Greek Constitution of 1973, the presidential powers were far greater than those of the parliament. Under the condition that Papadopoulos would curtail any military interference that could hinder the process, Spyros Markezinis was the only old guard politician prepared to assist in the controversial mission of helping the transition to some form of parliamentary rule. Scores of new publications were produced that covered a wide ideological spectrum, and the main issues of the era such as the Vietnam War, the Cultural Revolution, the Sino Soviet split, the death of Che Guevara, and the 1968 student protests in France and Italy were widely covered. Greece's transition was no different as the military, political elites and students sought to affirm their respective positions in society. In particular, the student movement in Greece had been repressed by the dictatorship and student activists were marginalised and suppressed in the name of anti communism. Early student activism during the dictatorship included the self immolation in 1970 of Geology student Kostas Georgakis in Genoa, Italy, in protest against the junta. His action served to demonstrate the depth of the resistance and resentment against the regime. Student activism in Greece was traditionally strong and, unlike in some dictatorships where democracy was a distant dream, had a long and established record of action in democratic times and, more important, it possessed the memory of past democratic action. In addition, the stiff constraints imposed by the rigid and artificial Papadopoulos transition upon the democratic body politic of Greece antagonised not only the politicians but also the intelligentsia, whose primary exponents were the students. Unlike a previous strike in the Athens law school in February 1973, prior to their liberalisation attempt, where the regime negotiated at length with the students and bloodshed was avoided, in November 1973 the regime made no attempt to negotiate with the students. his liberalisation plan was derailed as students, and, later, workers, used the liberalisation to start their uprising, which forced the Papadopoulos regime to clamp down hard on the protests, a move that discredited the very liberalisation Papadopoulos was trying to implement. In failing to negotiate, the junta made martyrs out of the Polytechnic students. This in turn gave the student protest momentum and it eventually evolved into a near universal demonstration against the dictatorship. At that point, the transitional government panicked, In its strident anti communism, the junta was opposed by large sections of Greek society which wished to overcome the trauma of the Greek Civil War. Papadopoulos had to be divisive and anti communist from the beginning because otherwise his coup d'état would not have made sense and now his attempt at metapolitefsi was being derailed, partially, because of that. The events at Athens Polytechnic unfolded precisely as the dictatorship's more staunch members had hoped.

He who enters here exits friend or cripple.|ESA operating doctrine

Ioannides's junta moved quickly to stifle any dissent, re instituting and accelerating repressive measures such as censorship, expulsions, arbitrary detentions and torture, described as among the harshest ever imposed in Greece, and earning the junta an international reputation as a police state. The EAT/ESA torture centre in Athens has been described as the "place that made Greece tremble". The EAT/ESA could arrest anyone, even superior officers, which generated the popular saying:

People were held incommunicado without EAT/ESA notifying anyone for weeks or months on end and were only allowed limited communication thereafter with their families through the Greek Red Cross. Loud music blared from the detention centres in order to suppress the screams of the victims." Makarios was at the time both Archbishop and President of Cyprus. He was deposed by military coup on 15 July 1974 and replaced by Nikos Sampson. However the coup backfired as Turkey reacted with Operation Atilla on 20 July; the Turkish invasion of Cyprus had begun. This military and political disaster for Greece and Cyprus led to thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of Greek Cypriot refugees, deeply traumatised the Greek body politic for the long term and was the final straw for Ioannides who had already instigated or participated in three coups in seven years – a record in modern Greek history – with catastrophic results for both countries. Now they were ready to relinquish this vision to that same old guard they had maligned as obsolete old party system men. Other junta members joined Gizikis in his pledge.

On 23 July 1974 Karamanlis returned to Athens on the French President's Mystère 20 jet made available to him by President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a close personal friend. Subsequently, Gizikis remained temporarily in power for legal continuity reasons. Despite being faced with an inherently unstable and dangerous political situation, which forced him to sleep aboard a yacht watched over by a naval destroyer for several weeks after his return, Karamanlis moved swiftly to defuse the tension between Greece and Turkey, which came on the brink of war over the Cyprus crisis, and begin the process of transition from military rule to a pluralist democracy. The civil society was not prepared to articulate a transition strategy "from below" and the groups of resistance were fragmented, despite their political glamor. Therefore the transition process became a "from above" project, whose weight had to fall on the shoulders of Karamanlis. Karamanlis first legalised the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) that was constantly demonised by the junta, using this political move as a differentiator between the junta rigidity on the matter that betrayed its totalitarianism and his own realpolitik approach honed by years of practicing democracy. The legalization of the Communist Party was also meant as a gesture of political inclusionism and rapprochement. At the same time Karamanlis also freed all political prisoners and pardoned all political crimes against the junta. The trials of the junta and the subsequent severe sentences on the principal junta members were a strong sign that the parliamentary right disapproved of power usurpation by using extra constitutional methods. Karamanlis also signaled the weakening of Greece's dependence on the US by prioritising the ascension of Greece to the European Union, which was frozen during the junta years, and succeeding. The relatively short duration of the Greek dictatorship compared to its Spanish and Portuguese counterparts which had lasted for decades, facilitated a quick transition to democratic rule. The mass trial, described as "Greece's Nuremberg", took place at the Korydallos Prison under heavy security and was televised. This trial was followed by a second trial which centered around the events of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. A plan to grant amnesty to the junta principals by the Konstantinos Mitsotakis government in 1990 was cancelled after protests from conservatives, socialists and communists. Papadopoulos died in hospital in 1999 after being transferred from Korydallos while Ioannides remained incarcerated until his death in 2010. The adoption of the Constitution of 1975 by the newly elected Hellenic Parliament solemnised the new era of democratic governance. The parliamentary committee that proposed the draft constitution was presided by Constantine Tsatsos, an Academician, former minister and close friend of Karamanlis, who served as the first elected President of Greece (after metapolitefsi) from 1975 to 1980.

Karamanlis's New Democracy went on to comfortably win the first post junta free elections in 1974 with 220 seat out of 300, with Centre Union gaining 60 seats, Andreas Papandreou's Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) 12, while the United Left entered parliament with 8 seats. Karamanlis's big win in 1974 demonstrated a great change in Greek politics, without giving cause for action to the relatively inactive, but still dangerous junta elements. Since 1974 Papandreou challenged Karamanlis's choices and objected to his dominant role in defining post 1974 democracy, while other political forces of the opposition, such as Center Union – New Forces and EDA occasionally offered him an inconsistent support, especially during 1974–1977. His successful prosecution of the junta during the junta trials and the heavy sentences imposed on the junta principals also sent a message to the army that the era of immunity from constitutional transgressions by the military was over. Karamanlis's policy of European integration is also acknowledged to have ended the paternalistic relation between Greece and the United States.