The 1993 elections brought a different Andreas Papandreou to power compared to his 1980s counterpart. He entrusted the economy to Giorgos Gennimatas, Alekos Papadopoulos, and Yiannis Stournaras, and the results were soon positive. This boosted the country’s efforts towards convergence with the EU, ultimately leading Greece from the brink of bankruptcy to the Eurozone in less than ten years.

Simultaneously, with the Peponis law establishing ASEP, PASOK rejected the cross-party political tradition of appointing thousands of the ruling party’s political supporters to positions.

However, Papandreou was severely affected by health issues, and the behaviors and practices of the so-called “Ekali court”—a circle surrounding his second wife, Dimitra Liani-Papandreou, involving “magicians” and fortune-tellers—further tarnished his image.

The New Democracy party, now led by Miltiadis Evert, was leading in the polls. In the 1995 presidential election, Papandreou overcame the hurdle with the help of Antonis Samaras, who, as the head of the Political Spring party in Parliament, proposed Kostis Stephanopoulos, thus establishing the tradition of electing a president from the opposing political faction to that of the ruling party.

However, eight months later, Papandreou was admitted to the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center and was forced to resign as Prime Minister in mid-January 1996. The time for Kostas Simitis had arrived…

Watch the 12th episode of the series “Behind the Scenes of the Metapolitefsi”.