Liberal Party (Greece)

This article is about the historical Liberal Party dissolved in 1961. For the contemporary Liberal Party, see Liberal Party (Greece, modern).
Liberal Party
Κόμμα Φιλελευθέρων
FounderEleftherios Venizelos
Founded22 August 1910[1]
(114 years ago)
Dissolved1961 (63 years ago)
Preceded byModernist Party (Greece)
Barefoot Party (Crete)
Merged intoCentre Union
IdeologyLiberalism[2] Greek nationalism[4]
Republicanism
Venizelism[2]
Political positionCentre[5]

The Liberal Party (Greek: Κόμμα Φιλελευθέρων [ˈkoma filelefˈθeɾon] ⓘ, literally "Party of Liberals") was a major political party in Greece during the early-to-mid 20th century. It was founded in August 1910 by Eleftherios Venizelos, winning a landslide victory in the November 1910 legislative elections. This began an era of Liberal-dominated politics, with the party winning 9 of the 12 elections between 1910 and 1933 and Venizelos serving as Prime Minister for a total of 12 years.

The party's platform was broadly modernising, liberal, social, and nationalist; a set of policies referred to as Venizelism in Greek politics. Though the party contained a social-democratic wing,[6] it became increasingly anti-communist in the 1920s. Originally ambiguous on the issue of the Greek monarchy, the party became decidedly republican following the National Schism and went on to dominate the Second Hellenic Republic. Among its most well-known members, apart from Venizelos, were Alexandros Papanastasiou, Nikolaos Plastiras, Georgios Papandreou and Konstantinos Mitsotakis.

The party struggled to gain support following the 4th of August Regime and the Second World War, before merging into the Centre Union lead by Georgios Papandreou and other former Liberal Party members. Since its founding, the party used the anchor as an electoral symbol, similar to the one Venizelos had brought with him from Crete.[7]

  1. ^ Συμπόσιο για τον Ελευθέριο Βενιζέλο. Benaki Museum. 1988. ISBN 9789602010655. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  2. ^ a b Hatzivassiliou, Evanthis (2010), "Greek Liberalism in the Twentieth Century Dilemmas of Research", The Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2010, Springer, p. 124
  3. ^ Varnava, Andrekos (2012), "British and Greek Liberalism and Imperialism", Liberal Imperialism in Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 229–235, Venizelist liberalism and imperialism not only was connected to British liberalism and liberal approaches to imperialism, but was also a product of it. Although looking East for territory, Venizelist imperialism looked to unite the "unredeemed Greeks" living in the East under an "orientalist" pre-modern system with the Europe that was (or would be) Modern Greece - western, modern and liberal.
  4. ^ Roudometof, Victor (2002), Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Praeger Publishers, p. 98
  5. ^ The Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2010. Springer. 2010. ISBN 9783642123740. Retrieved 28 May 2014.
  6. ^ Paschalis M. Kitromilides (2006). Eleftherios Venizelos - The Trials of Statesmanship. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 285–306. ISBN 9780748633647.
  7. ^ Helen Gardikas-Katsiadakis (2006). Eleftherios Venizelos - The Trials of Statesmanship. Edinburgh University Press. p. 99. ISBN 9780748633647.