1985 Greek constitutional crisis

The Greek constitutional crisis of 1985 was the first constitutional dispute of the newly formed Third Hellenic Republic after the fall of the Greek Junta in 1974. It was initiated as a political gamble of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou by suddenly declaring that he would not support the re-election of Konstantinos Karamanlis for a second term as President of the Republic. Papandreou also proposed constitutional amendments designed to further increase the power of his position by reducing the presidential powers, which were acting as checks and balances against the executive branch.

Papandreou instead backed Supreme Court justice Christos Sartzetakis, who was popular with left-leaning voters for his investigation of the politically motivated murder of Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. Sartzetakis was elected president by the Hellenic Parliament in a tense and confrontational atmosphere due to constitutionally questionable procedures initiated by Papandreou. The opposition, New Democracy led by Konstantinos Mitsotakis and Karamanlis' former party, deemed the vote illegal, with Mitsotakis threatening to remove Sartzetakis from the presidency if they won the upcoming elections, intensifying the constitutional crisis.

The polarized confrontation continued into the upcoming general election campaigns. However, Sartzetakis' election helped Papandreou and his socialist PASOK party to secure the general election despite Papandreou's failure to address Greece's economic decline. After the elections, all political parties accepted Sartzetakis as president, ending the constitutional crisis. The constitutional amendments took effect in 1986 and they transformed the liberal democracy of Greece based on the constitution of 1975 into a 'populist democracy' with a majoritarian parliamentary system and a prime minister acting as a "parliamentary autocrat."

Soon after the constitutional amendments took effect, Papandreou's premiership was engulfed by corruption scandals, with the Koskotas scandal standing out as the most significant. With no constitutional restraints, Papandreou abused his position to prevent the Koskotas case from advancing in the courts, and his patronage reached new extremes as he promised to deplete the state's coffers to his loyal supporters. After losing the 1989 elections, a collaborative government between conservative New Democracy and united leftist parties under Synaspismos, despite their ideological opposition and having fought against each other in the Greek Civil War, indicted Papandreou and four of his ministers, as well as breaking state's monopoly on the mass media and partially dismantling the state's surveillance capabilities, to prevent any future omnipotent prime minister from exploiting them for political advantage. Since then, constitutional scholars have suggested partially reversing the removal of presidential powers to mitigate the negative effects of majoritarian politics while avoiding potential conflicts between the president and prime minister.