Three Parties In Contest

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 13

Three Parties In Contest

The three parties contesting the Greek General Election tomorrow are: The Union of the Centre; The National Radical Union; and The United Democratic Left (E.D.A.).

The Union of the Centre is led by the 76-year-old veteran politician, Mr George Papandreou. It topped the poll at the November General Election and was in power for 47 days; but by then it had become evident that it could not govern with 13 seats short of a working majority.

Declining to accept the support of the 28 deputies of the pro-Communist E.D.A. or a “vote of tolerance’’ from the main opposition party, the' National Radical Union, Mr Papandreou resigned on Christmas Eve. The National Radical Union, which was defeated in November, at the same time lost its founder and leader, Mr Constantine Karamanlis, who left the political scene and has since been living in voluntary exile in Paris. The party is now led by 61-year-old Professor Panayotis ■ Kanellopoulos. The Radical Union has joined forces with the Progressive Party, led by Greece’s youngest political leader, 55-year-old Mr Spyros Markezinis.

The E.D.A. is labelled by security police as the legal camouflage of the banned Greek Communist Party. It has nominated candidates in only 31 out of the country’s 55 constituencies.

Speaking at a mass rally of the party's supporters in ’Salonica, its leader, 79-year-old Russian-born Dr. John Passalides, said that in the 24 areas where the party is not presenting candidates of its own, supporters have been instructed to vote for the Union of the Centre list.