Greek Parliamentary Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 61 CONTESTS · parliamentary, 25 June 2023 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
Next election · parliamentary, expected 2027 · Capital · Athens in the metro rankings →
Where the chamber sits · 5.5 of 10, left to right, spread 2.5 →
Every Greek parliamentary election from 1862 to June 2023: the constitutional kingdom and its parties named after men, the National Schism, the civil war and the colonels, the two-party metapolitefsi, the crisis that destroyed it in three years, and the fifty-seat bonus that decides who governs.
The bonus
50
seats handed to the largest party under the 2023 rules
Elections since 1862
61
on file
Two in one year
1989, 2012, 2015, 2023
four times a single election failed to produce a government
The chronology
Every Greek parliamentary election, newest first, era by era. The colonels' seven years and the Metaxas dictatorship appear as the gaps they were.
After the crisis · 2023–
The bonus was abolished, then restored. May 2023 produced a parliament under the old proportional rules that nobody could govern from, so a second election in June ran under the new rules and handed New Democracy a majority. The left is now split four ways where Syriza stood alone.
The crisis · 2012–2019
The debt crisis destroyed the two-party system in a single cycle. PASOK went from governing party to 12% in three years, Syriza from a fringe to power, and Golden Dawn into parliament. Two elections in 2012 and two in 2015, a referendum that rejected the bailout terms the government then accepted, and a bonus of fifty seats that decided who governed.
New Democracy 158Syriza 86Movement for Change 22
Syriza 145New Democracy 75Golden Dawn 18
Syriza 149New Democracy 76Popular Association–Golden Dawn 17
New Democracy 108Syriza 52PASOK 41
New Democracy 129Syriza 71PASOK 33
Metapolitefsi · 1974–2009
The junta collapsed over Cyprus and Karamanlis returned from Paris to build a republic that lasted. A referendum ended the monarchy, the Communist Party was legalised after twenty-seven years, and from 1981 New Democracy and PASOK alternated in power with reinforced-proportional majorities, a two-party system as settled as any in Europe.
PASOK 160New Democracy 91Communist Party of Greece 21
New Democracy 152PASOK 102Communist Party of Greece 22
New Democracy 165PASOK 117Communist Party of Greece 12
PASOK 158New Democracy 125Communist Party of Greece 11
PASOK 162New Democracy 108Communist Party of Greece 11
Panhellenic Socialist Movement 170New Democracy 111Political Spring 10
New Democracy 150Panhellenic Socialist Movement 123Coalition of the Left and Progress 19others 3
New Democracy 148Panhellenic Socialist Movement 128Coalition of the Left and Progress 21
New Democracy 145Panhellenic Socialist Movement 125Coalition of the Left and Progress 28
PASOK 161New Democracy 126Communist Party of Greece 12
PASOK 172New Democracy 115Communist Party of Greece 13
New Democracy 171Panhellenic Socialist Movement 93Union of the Democratic Centre 16
New Democracy 220Centre Union – New Forces 60Panhellenic Socialist Movement 12
Civil war and its long shadow · 1946–1964
The 1946 election was held under a boycott by the left and won by the royalists; the civil war that followed ran to 1949 and its losers stayed banned from politics for a generation. Centre-right governments then held power for fifteen years under electoral systems redrawn to keep them there, until Papandreou's Centre Union broke through in 1963.
Centre Union 171National Radical Union-Progressive Party 107United Democratic Left 22
Centre Union 138National Radical Union 132United Democratic Left 28
National Radical Union 176Centre Union–Progressive Party 100All-Democratic Agricultural Front 24
National Radical Union 171United Democratic Left 79Liberal Party 36
National Radical Union 165Democratic Union 132List of Independents 2
Greek Rally 247National Progressive Center Union–Liberal Party 51List of Independents 2
Greek Rally 114National Progressive Center Union 74Liberal Party 57
People's Party 62Liberal Party 56National Progressive Center Union 45
United Alignment of Nationalists 206National Political Union 68Liberal Party 48
The National Schism · 1920–1936
Venizelos against the crown, twice over, in a quarrel about which side to take in the First World War that outlived the war by twenty years. Between them sit the Asia Minor catastrophe and a million and a half refugees who changed the electorate permanently, a republic proclaimed in 1924 and abolished in 1935, and a run of elections whose results were repeatedly overturned by coup.
Liberal Party 126People's Party 72General Popular Radical Union 60
People's Party–National Radical Party 287Union of Royalists 7Independents 6
People's Party 118Liberal Party 80Agricultural and Labour Party 13
Liberal Party 98People's Party 95Progressive Party 14
Liberal Party 178Agricultural and Labour Party 20People's Party 19
Liberal Union 108People's Party 60Freethinkers' Party 52
United Opposition 251Liberal Party 118
The constitutional kingdom · 1862–1915
Otto was deposed in 1862 and the constitution of 1864 gave Greece universal male suffrage, decades ahead of most of Europe. What it did not give was stable government: the king still picked ministries until the 1875 principle of dedilomeni forced him to appoint whoever held the chamber. The parties of the period are named after the men who led them, Trikoupis against Deligiannis, which tells you what they were.
Liberal Party 146Supporters of Georgios Theotokis 10Supporters of Kyriakoulis Mavromichalis 8
Liberal Party 307Small opposition 42Independents 13
Supporters of Dimitrios Rallis 47Supporters of Alexandros Zaimis 7Independents 6others 117
Supporters of Theodoros Deligiannis 144Supporters of Georgios Theotokis 53Independents 20
Supporters of Theodoros Deligiannis 102Supporters of Georgios Theotokis 102Supporters of Alexandros Zaimis 19others 1
Supporters of Georgios Theotokis 110Supporters of Alexandros Zaimis 35Supporters of Theodoros Deligiannis 35others 35
Supporters of Theodoros Deligiannis 150Supporters of Dimitrios Rallis 20Supporters of Charilaos Trikoupis 20
Supporters of Charilaos Trikoupis 160United Opposition 47
Supporters of Theodoros Deligiannis 100Independents 35Supporters of Charilaos Trikoupis 15
Supporters of Charilaos Trikoupis 90United Opposition 60
Supporters of Theodoros Deligiannis 170Supporters of Charilaos Trikoupis 40Independents 30
Supporters of Charilaos Trikoupis 125Supporters of Koumoundouros and Deligiannis 100Supporters of Leonidas Deligiorgis 6others 14
Supporters of Koumoundouros and Deligiannis 100United Opposition 85Independent 20
Supporters of Alexandros Koumoundouros 80Supporters of Epameinondas Deligiorgis 30Supporters of Thrasyvoulos Zaimis 25
United Opposition 96Supporters of Dimitrios Voulgaris 94
United Opposition 95Supporters of Epameinondas Deligiorgis 85Independents 10
Supporters of Alexandros Koumoundouros 65Supporters of Dimitrios Voulgaris 65Independents 20
English Party 100Russian Party 50French Party 30
Koumoundouros and Voulgaris supporters 114Epameinondas Deligiorgis supporters 70
Russian Party 95French Party 40Ottonian loyalists 35
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1926
Voting was compulsory in Greece from 1926 and enforcement was real: turnout sat above 75% for sixty years. It has fallen by more than twenty points since the crisis, and the fine has not been levied in decades.
The largest party's share
Two-party Greece peaked at PASOK's 48% in 1981. Nothing since 2012 has come close, which is precisely why the seat bonus was invented and then repeatedly rewritten.
Records & superlatives
How Greek elections work
Reinforced proportional representation
Greece has spent most of its democratic history topping up the largest party's seats. The bonus has been as large as fifty seats, was abolished for the May 2023 election and restored for the June one, which is why two votes six weeks apart produced completely different parliaments from almost identical results.
A 3% threshold with teeth
Parties below 3% take nothing, and in a fragmented field that has repeatedly wasted a tenth of the vote. The threshold is also why the Greek left keeps merging and splitting: below it, votes vanish.
Parties named after men
For the first fifty years on this page the parties are the Supporters of Trikoupis, of Deligiannis, of Theotokis. They were personal followings rather than programmes, which is why the chamber could turn over completely from one election to the next.
Elections that were not held
The gap between 1964 and 1974 is the colonels. The gap between 1936 and 1946 is the Metaxas dictatorship, the occupation and the start of the civil war. Both are marked rather than skipped.