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New Democracy ('''ND''', , is the main center-right political party in Greece . After an initial period of success, ND spent most of the 1980s and 1990s in opposition. At the 7 March, 2004 Greek Elections , ND returned to office under the leadership of Kostas Karamanlis , nephew of the party's founder. HISTORY ND was founded on October 4 1974 , two months after Constantine Karamanlis was sworn in as the first Prime Minister in the post-dictatorship era in Greece. Karamanlis had already served as Prime Minister from 1955 to 1963 . In the first free elections of the new era, New Democracy won. This result is attributed mostly to the personal appeal of Karamanlis, rather than the influence of ND as a party, to the electorate; "Karamanlis or tanks" was a slogan at the time, with the latter referring to the military, which, it was feared, might stage another coup. Karamanlis claimed that he intended New Democracy to be a more modern and progressive right-wing party than those which had ruled Greece before the 1967 military coup, including his own ERE (Ethniki Rizospastiki Enosis = National Radical Union). The party's ideology was defined as "radical liberalism," a term defined by ND as "the prevalence of free market rules with the decisive intervention of the state in favour of social justice." In 1977 , ND again won national elections, albeit with a largely reduced majority (41.88%); still, it retained a comfortable parliamentary majority. Under Karamanlis Greece redefined its relations with NATO , and tried to resolve the Cyprus issue following the Turkish invasion. In 1980 , however, Karamanlis retired. His successor, George Rallis , was defeated at the following elections by the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) led by Andreas Papandreou . Under ND leadership Greece joined the European Communities in 1981 . Karamanlis was criticised by opposing parties (which were against the prospect of entering the EEC), for not holding a referendum, despite the fact that entry into the EEC was prominent in the political platform under which New Democracy had been elected to power. ND returned to power in a coalition government (prime minister: Tzanis Tzannetakis) with the traditional Left Party ( Synaspismos , which at the time included the Communist Party Of Greece ) in 1989 , subsequently participated in the grand coalition government of Xenophon Zolotas from November 1989 to April 1990 and, eventually, formed a majority government under Constantine Mitsotakis after new elections were held on April 10 1990 . The party then suffered a period of successive losses. It was defeated by a landslide in 1993 under Mitsotakis, in 1996 under Miltiadis Evert , and in 2000 under Kostas Karamanlis , nephew of the party's founder. In 2000 ND lost by 1,06% of the popular vote, the smallest margin in modern Greek history. By 2003 , however, ND was consistently leading the PASOK government of Costas Simitis in opinion polls. In January 2004 Simitis resigned and announced elections for March 7 , at which Karamanlis faced the new PASOK leader, George Papandreou . Despite speculation that Papandreou would succeed in restoring PASOK's fortunes, Karamanlis had a victory in the elections and became Greece's first center-right Prime Minister after eleven years. ND is a member of the European People's Party (EPP), the International Democrat Union (IDU) and the Christian Democrat International (CDI). ELECTION RESULTS, PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS 1974-2004 EXTERNAL LINKS
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