Longtime Greek Opponents Renew Crucial Rivalry

The last time opposition leader Constantine Mitsotakis went head-to-head against Socialist Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, both wound up in exile and Greece suffered a military coup d’etat.

That was 20 years ago, when bitter differences between the two politicians triggered the collapse of the country’s democratic government and paved the way for seven years of military dictatorship, for which each still blames the other.

Today, they are squared off again in an electoral battle that may be just as fateful, setting the course of government in the strategically vital Mediterranean country for years to come.

Mitsotakis is a 40-year veteran of Greek politics who has restored an appearance of verve and personality to the faltering and faction-ridden opposition New Democracy Party, an essentially conservative movement that lost so badly in general elections four years ago that there were fears it would not survive.

But “the Tall Man,” as he is often called because--at 6 feet, 3 inches--he towers over most of his countrymen, exudes confidence that New Democracy will edge out Papandreou’s Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) in elections scheduled for June 2.

‘We Would Win’

“If elections were held today, we would win,” the self-assured Mitsotakis, 66, said in a recent interview at his Athens campaign office. “My polls showed a slight majority even before the crisis.”

He was referring to the political turmoil that followed Papandreou’s abrupt sacking, on March 9, of the widely admired conservative President Constantine Karamanlis.

In what was interpreted as a last-minute tactical ploy to keep radical leftist elements of PASOK from deserting him and to curry favor with the Moscow-oriented Greek Communist Party, Papandreou withdrew a promise to back Karamanlis for another five-year term as president and nominated in his stead Christos Sartzetakis, a non-political supreme court judge acceptable to the left.

Karamanlis, who during his presidency acted as a quiet brake on Papandreou’s radical tendencies, immediately resigned.

The apparent betrayal of the popular president stunned the nation and brought on weeks of political anguish during which Papandreou had to resort to constitutionally dubious tactics and Communist Party support to get Sartzetakis elected by a bare one-vote edge in the PASOK-dominated Parliament.

‘A Headless Republic’

Mitsotakis and New Democracy refused to accept the result because the deciding vote was cast by the speaker of Parliament and acting president, who, they said, was barred from voting under the constitution, and because PASOK violated the secrecy of the vote by forcing the use of colored ballots to keep its own deputies in line.

“Greece is a headless republic,” Mitsotakis complained.

But the opposition leader took heart from the effects of the crisis, which political analysts said shattered Papandreou’s support among voters of the uncommitted center. They said that as much as 10% to 15% of the voters who had supported PASOK for the sake of change in the 1981 elections were so shocked by Papandreou’s betrayal of Karamanlis and his rough parliamentary tactics that they may turn to New Democracy on June 2.

Greek newspaper polls before and after the crisis reflected a steady erosion of the radical prime minister’s once-comfortable electoral margin.

After Sartzetakis’ controversial election, recent newspaper polls show, the PASOK lead shrank to a virtual dead heat with the conservatives.

Mitsotakis’ own polls and bellwether national student elections (taken seriously in Greece because they usually reflect national party strengths) showed New Democracy ahead of PASOK.

Pre-Campaign Rally

As a result, Mitsotakis has assumed an air of public and private confidence, bolstered by the surprising outpouring of more than 200,000 people at his first major pre-campaign political rally in Athens two weeks ago.

The campaign does not officially open until today, but Mitsotakis has already made a major issue of Papandreou’s parliamentary tactics after the Karamanlis crisis. The controversial prime minister rammed through not only Sartzetakis’ election but also constitutional reforms that will strip the presidency of all but ceremonial powers.

Charges of a Greek-style Watergate--the alleged bugging and telephone tapping of Mitsotakis’ party and campaign offices--have also aroused emotions. Although the government denied responsibility, the New Democracy leader attacked Papandreou for creating “an acute crisis--national, political, constitutional and ethical.”

Despite harsh rhetoric on both sides, Mitsotakis has mostly kept his cool, hammering relentlessly, and some say colorlessly, on the mercurial prime minister’s failure to solve Greece’s severe domestic problems.

Huge Financial Losses

Government takeovers of private industries have left huge financial losses, general business recession continues, inflation still runs at about 18% and unemployment is about 10%.

“Papandreou will be known in history as the prime minister of unemployment,” Mitsotakis said in a recent political speech. “We never had unemployment to this extent before 1981.”

Mitsotakis said he wants to restore a liberal market economy to Greece “as the only way to build confidence and activate industry.” Fiddling with the government, which has expanded under Papandreou, is useless, he said.

While the urbane New Democracy candidate shares the negative feelings of most Greeks toward past American mistakes in the country, notably U.S. support of the military dictatorship from 1967 to 1974, he is positively pro-American compared to Papandreou.

‘We Are Friends of The U.S.’

“We are friends and allies of the U.S., and we will restore normal relations with our friends and allies,” Mitsotakis said, adding that in the case of American military bases and tactical nuclear weapons on Greek soil “we will agree to maintain the present situation with no changes.”

The Papandreou government has reserved the unilateral right to order the removal of nuclear weapons and to end the U.S. military presence in 1989 at the end of the current agreement on bases.

Mitsotakis also said that he has plans to calm relations with Turkey, which is seen by Papandreou as a greater military threat to Greece than the Soviet Union.

Honest Dealing With Turkey

Perhaps the most emotional and potentially disruptive issue in the forthcoming elections is the question of which man will be more believed in his interpretation of the history of 20 years ago, when their dispute over policies in the government of Andreas’s father, George Papandreou, had such disastrous consequences for Greece.

At the time, Andreas Papandreou, freshly returned to Greece from his job as a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, had renounced his American citizenship and won a seat in Parliament, as well as the post of his father’s chief adviser. In a play to the left wing of his father’s party, in 1965 he vigorously attacked the monarchy, the Greek military and the United States.

Mitsotakis and other deputies were so angered by Andreas Papandreou’s tactics that they left the party, thereby bringing on the government’s downfall and the ensuing instability that culminated in the so-called “colonels’ coup” of April 21, 1967.

Today, Papandreou blames Mitsotakis’ defection for the disaster that left Greek democracy in shackles; Mitsotakis blames Papandreou.

“What happened to Karamanlis recently bears similarities to what happened in 1965,” Mitsotakis said. “The split in the party then was created and provoked by Andreas. The responsibility was his.”