2009 New Democracy leadership election

2009 New Democracy leadership election

← 1997 29 November 2009 2015–16 →

Candidate Antonis Samaras Dora Bakoyannis 1st round 386,400 50.06% 306,625 39.72%

President of ND before election Kostas Karamanlis Elected President of ND Antonis Samaras

The 2009 New Democracy leadership election was held on 29 November 2009, following the official announcement of the resignation of Kostas Karamanlis, after more than 12 years (since 21 March 1997) as leader of New Democracy, the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece (at that time, the other of the two major parties was PASOK, the social democratic and center-left political party).

Karamanlis announced that he would start procedures for the election of a new president on 4 October 2009, after the defeat of majority party New Democracy in the 2009 Greek legislative election, which was held on the same day.^[1] Antonis Samaras succeeded Karamanlis as the party's leader having won 50.06 percent of the votes at first round: for this reason, no second round was required and Samaras took office on 30 November 2009 as ND party President and Leader of Opposition (against PASOK and George Papandreou's cabinet).