Parliamentary elections were held in Greece on 11 May 1958.

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An expe ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p830 The result was a second consecutive victory for Konstantinos Karamanlis and his National Radical Union, which won 171 of the 300 seats in Parliament.

Background

Karamanlis took the decision to call for early elections, after some of the most prominent members of the National Radical Union defected from the party, including

George Rallis Georgios Ioannou Rallis ( el, Γεώργιος Ιωάννου Ράλλης; 26 December 1918 – 15 March 2006), anglicisation, anglicised to George Rallis, was a Greece, Greek conservative politician and the 2nd Prime Minister of Greece from 198 ...

and . Although Karamanlis could have a parliamentary majority, he preferred to go for elections, in order to achieve a renewed public support. The pretext of the defection was a new electoral law that Karamanlis passed. Rallis was opposed to the law, thinking that it is going to be extremely favorable for

EDA EDA or Eda may refer to: Computing * Electronic design automation * Enterprise Desktop Alliance, a computer technology consortium * Enterprise digital assistant * Estimation of distribution algorithm * Event-driven architecture * Exploratory ...

, a party believed to be linked with the then-banned

Communist Party of Greece The Communist Party of Greece ( el, Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας, ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a political party in Greece. Founded in 1918 as the Socialist Labour Party of Greece and adopted its curren ...

. The outcome of the results proved that Rallis' "fears" were justified.

became the second biggest party, outvoting a divided centre. Just after the elections Karamanlis formed a new government, taking back in his party the defectors.

Results

Aftermath

The unexpected rise of EDA, barely nine years after the end of the Greek Civil War, sent alarms through the right-wing establishment, and measures were taken to combat the emergent "communist threat", including the division of the large urban electoral districts of Athens, Piraeus and Thessaloniki so that the left-voting areas would be separated (forming the

Athens B Athens B (Athens Beta; el, Β΄ Αθηνών) was a parliamentary constituency in Attica represented in the Hellenic Parliament. It covered a large part of urban area of Athens outside the Municipality of Athens, which forms the Athens A constit ...

Piraeus B Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...

, etc. constituencies), as well as the establishment of a dedicated domestic security agency, the General Directorate of National Security.

References

{{Greek elections Parliamentary elections in Greece

Legislative election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

1950s in Greek politics Greece Greece Legl Constantinos Karamanlis