Andreas Papandreou
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| Andreas Georgiou Papandreou Greek: Ανδρέας Γεωργίου Παπανδρέου |
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3rd Prime Minister of the Third Hellenic Republic
8th Prime Minister of the Third Hellenic Republic |
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| In office October 21, 1981 – July 2, 1989 October 13, 1993 – January 22, 1996 |
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| Preceded by | George Rallis (1981) Constantine Mitsotakis (1993) |
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| Succeeded by | Tzannis Tzannetakis (1989) Costas Simitis (1996) |
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| Born | February 15, 1919 Chios, Greece |
| Died | June 23, 1996 Athens, Greece |
| Political party | Panhellenic Socialist Movement |
| Spouse | Margaret Papandreou Dimitra Liani |
Andreas Georgiou Papandreou, Ανδρέας Γ. Παπανδρέου (5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist, a socialist politician and a towering figure in Greek politics. He served three terms as Prime Minister of Greece (October 21, 1981, to July 2, 1989, and October 13, 1993, to January 22, 1996). In 1999, Papandreou was posthumously awarded the Swedish Order of the Northern Star.
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[edit] Early life and career
Papandreou was born on the island of Chios, Greece, the son of the leading Greek Liberal politician George Papandreou. His mother, born Zofia (Sofia) Mineyko, was half Polish. Before university he attended Athens College, a leading elite secondary education institution in Greece .He attended the University of Athens from 1937, and from 1938 he was active in Trotskyist groups. The dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas was established in 1936, and in 1939 Papandreou was arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. After his release, he was then able to use his family connections to leave the country.
In 1942 Papandreou enrolled at Harvard University, where he completed a doctorate in economics. In 1943 Papandreou joined America's war effort and volunteered for the US Navy where he served as a male nurse at Bethesda Hospital for war wounded, and became a United States citizen. He returned to Harvard in 1946 and served as a lecturer and associate professor until 1947. He then held professorships at the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, the University of California, Berkeley (where he was chair of the Department of Economics), the University of Stockholm and York University in Toronto, Canada. In 1951 he married an American, Margaret Chant (http://wiki.phantis.com/index.php/Margaret_Chant), with whom he had three sons and a daughter. He also had a daughter out of wedlock living in Sweden (http://tovima.dolnet.gr/print_article.php?e=B&f=14861&m=A39&aa=1).
[edit] Political career
Papandreou returned to Greece in 1959, where he headed an economic development research program. In 1960 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors and General Director of the Athens Economic Research Center and Advisor to the Bank of Greece. In 1963 his father George Papandreou, head of the Center Union, became Prime Minister of Greece. Andreas became his chief economic advisor. He renounced his American citizenship and was elected to the Greek Parliament in the Greek legislative election, 1964. He immediately became Minister to the First Ministry of State (in effect, assistant Prime Minister). Papandreou took at least rhetorically a neutral stand on the Cold War and wished for Greece to be more independent from the USA. He also criticized the massive presence of the American military and intelligence teams and wished to remove senior officers with anti-democratic tendencies from the military. He also tried unsuccessfully to prevent the continuation of the KYP's practice - which worked extremely closely with the CIA - to listen to ministerial conversations with covert listening devices.
His rapid rise provoked resentment and was a factor that led to the fall of George Papandreou's government: in 1965 George Papandreou wanted to fire the defense minister and sought to take the post himself while the "Aspida" conspiracy within the Army, said to involve Andreas, was being investigated.
When the Greek Colonels led by George Papadopoulos seized power in April 1967, Andreas and George Papandreou were both imprisoned. George Papandreou died under house arrest in 1968, and Andreas was again expelled from the country. In Paris in exile, he formed a new anti-dictatorial organization, the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), and toured the world rallying opposition to the Greek military regime. Despite his long residence in the United States, he held the Central Intelligence Agency responsible for the 1967 coup and became increasingly critical of the U.S. Government.
Papandreou returned to Greece after the fall of the junta in 1974 during metapolitefsi. There he established a new radical party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or PASOK. Most of his former PAK companions, as well as members of other anti-dictatorial groups such as the Democratic Defense joined in the new party.
At that year's elections, PASOK received only 13.5% of the vote, but in 1977 it polled 25%, and Papandreou became Leader of the Opposition. At the 1981 elections, PASOK won a landslide victory over the conservative New Democracy Party, and Papandreou became Greece's first socialist Prime Minister.
In office Papandreou had to backtrack from much of his inflammatory campaign rhetoric and follow a more pragmatic approach. Greece did not withdraw from NATO, United States troops were not ordered out of Greece, and Greek membership of the European Economic Community continued. In domestic politics Papandreou's government carried through sweeping (and at the same time expensive) refoms of social policy by instituting universal health care coverage (the "National Health System"), promoting state subsidized tourism for the poor, and funding centers where the elderly can socialize with no out-of-pocket costs, which were thought to lead the poor to isolation.
Importantly, Papandreou attempted to shift the concentration of power from the traditional right and change the power structure of the Greek political system. He effected reconciliation and inclusionism in Greek politics by reversing the previous policy of refraining from references to the Greek Civil War by changing high school history textbooks, having the Greek Center for Cinema fund movies by prominent Communist directors referring to that era, offering state pension to former Communist guerrillas, and honorarily electing Markos Vafiadis (their leader) as member of the Greek parliament. At the same time a massive campaign (what PASOK called "democratization") to force senior officials of the Greek state, military/police, mainly right wingers long associated with oppression and the parakratos (state within a state), and judiciary to early retirement took place. A major part of Papandreou's "allagi" (societal change) involved a change in economic organization, driving away the "old families" ("tzakia" literaly: fireplaces denoting that only in the homes of the rich and established there was a fireplace). Indeed, a number of Greek industrialists and shipowners abandoned their investments in Greece during the 1980s primarily because of the labor policies of that era, with former union leaders dominating PASOK's leading council ("Kentriki Epitropi") and having unprecedented representation in Parliament as well as in Papandreou's cabinet. At the same time influential "new family" business owners emerged, like George Koskotas (see Bank of Crete) and Sokratis Kokkalis, acquiring control of news media and powerfully popular football teams, hiring for well sought after positions in the private sector (in the case of Kokkalis highly skilled and paid employees in telecommunications, computers, and management) while becoming recipients of sometimes exclusive contracts from the Greek state and state-owned monopolies.
Papandreou was easily re-elected in 1985 with 46%, but in 1989 the elections produced a deadlock, which led to a prolonged political crisis. Despite the fact Papandreou's PASOK had secured only 40% of the popular vote, compared to opposing New Democracy's 46%, the latter could not form a government because PASOK had passed changes in the electoral law one year before the elections, precluding the formation of governments on such a percentage. Finally, after three consecutive election between 1989 and 1990, the New Democracy leader, Constantine Mitsotakis, succeeded in forming a government. From this time on Papandreou's career became increasingly surrounded by controversy and scandal. In 1989 he divorced his wife Margaret Papandreou and married Dimitra Liani. This led to estrangement from his adult children, one of whom, George Papandreou, was by this time a senior PASOK minister.
In the same year, Papandreou was indicted by Parliament in connection with the US$200 million Bank of Crete embezzlement scandal. He was accused of helping the embezzlement by ordering state corporations to transfer their holdings to the Bank of Crete, where the interest was allegedly skimmed off to benefit PASOK. He was cleared of all wrongdoing in January 1992, after a 7-6 vote in a "special court" trial, which was ordered by the Greek parliament, with the support of the New Democracy and the Communist party.
Papandreou confounded his critics by winning elections in October 1993. But Papandreou's fragile health kept him from exercising firm political leadership. His wife became increasingly influential and it was alleged that she was preventing him from retiring. Papandreou was hospitalized with advanced heart disease and kidney failure in November 1995, and finally retired from office on January 16, 1996. He died in June. His funeral procession produced a great outpouring of public emotion. Using one of his characteristic figures of speech, he "wrote history" even in his last public appearance.
[edit] Influence on the Greek economy
Andreas Papandreou adopted and followed all the principles that characterize a socialistic economy. Papandreou offered subsidies to many industries. PASOK and Andreas Papandreou walked out of the parliament when the previous right wing government, voted in favor of Greece joining the EU. This did not prevent Papandreou to use the EU funds to promote growth and development in Greece.
[edit] Legacy
Andreas Papandreou was an intensely polarising figure.
His supporters considered him a powerful orator who served, and was adored by, the working class, the elderly, and the people in rural Greece who found in him a champion for those brushed aside in Greek society (the "non privileged") and warmed to his populist attacks on the rich and his blend of nationalism and socialism. He is lauded for exercising an independent foreign policy, which elevated Greece's position internationally, especially among the non-aligned nations, and he affirmed Greece's independence in setting her own policy agenda, both internally and externally, free from any foreign domination as was usually the case in the past.
His conservative opponents dismissed him as a corrupt demagogue whose foreign policy damaged Greece's reputation amongst western allies and whose economic policies, which included high public spending, ultimately ruined the Greek economy.
His opponents on the left, including KKE, have accused him of ultimately supporting the agenda of NATO and the United States.
Andreas Papandreou is widely acknowledged for shifting political power from the traditional conservative right, that for decades dominated Greek politics, to a more populist and centre-left. Political forces who where pariahs as of the end of the Greek civil war were for the first time given a chance to prove themselves in democratically elected governments. This shift in Greek political landscape helped heal old civil war wounds; Greece became more pluralistic and more in line with the political systems of other western European countries.
Papandreou's successor in office, Costas Simitis, abandoned many of his policies, and was seen by many as more conservative by comparison.
Papandreou's son, George Papandreou, was elected leader of PASOK in February 2004. At the 2004 Greek elections, PASOK used Papandreou's legacy with the slogan "Andrea, zis! Esi mas odigis!" ("Andreas, you are still alive! You lead us!").
| Preceded by George Rallis |
Prime Minister of Greece 1981–1989 |
Succeeded by Tzannis Tzannetakis |
| Preceded by Constantine Mitsotakis |
Prime Minister of Greece 1993–1996 |
Succeeded by Costas Simitis |
