Constantine Mitsotakis
Thatcherite Greek prime minister who tried to wean his country off its addiction to socialism
CONSTANTINE MITSOTAKIS, who has died aged 98, was prime minister of Greece from 1990 to 1993; his premiership, which embraced Thatcherite economics, proved a brief interlude during two decades of free-spending socialist dominance that paved the way for the country’s present crisis.
Although he only attained power for a short time, Mitsotakis was a prominent if divisive figure in Greek politics for half a century. From the early Eighties onwards, latterly as the leader of the New Democracy (ND) party, he was the chief foe of Andreas Papandreou, founder of Pasok, the progressive socialist movement that in 1981 overturned 50 years of government by the Right.
Yet many within ND regarded Mitsotakis, who had begun as a Liberal, as an opportunistic interloper. Many on the Left never forgave him for having crossed the floor in 1965. His gesture, which came during a bitter dispute between the government and King Constantine about control of the Army, led the administration to fall and made it easier for the Colonels to seize power two years later.
It was widely believed that Mitsotakis’s decision owed much to the sudden rise of Andreas Papandreou, when the former had long believed himself heir to the centrist tradition represented by the latter’s father, George. It added spice to their later rivalry that the government riven apart by Mitsotakis had been headed by George, who died a year after the coup while under house arrest.
Mitsotakis became prime minister in 1990 with a majority of just one, provided by a coalition partner. He was thus always vulnerable and mass protests met the spending cuts which he implemented. Fiscal restraint was necessary but came as a shock to ordinary Greeks. Under Papandreou they had enjoyed a huge rise in living standards in less than a decade.
Foreign policy offered easier targets. He improved relations with Turkey and lowered the volume of antiamerican rhetoric emanating from Athens. With the end of the Cold War, he became the first Greek premier to visit Washington for almost 30 years.
His great triumph was overseeing in 1991 Greece’s accession to the Maastricht treaty (as foreign minister a decade earlier he had presided over its entry into the EEC), so securing EU funds that would transform further the country’s infrastructure and its way of life. But in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia, Mitsotakis came to be regarded by many Greeks as too relaxed in his treatment of the former republic of Macedonia. This was popularly viewed as having appropriated as its name one that was traditionally Hellenic rather than Slav.
Mitsotakis’s government was brought down by a walkout by an ambitious young politician, Antonis Samaras; he had once been roommates with Papandreou’s son George at university. Papandreou returned to power in 1993 – in part by promising to increase once again state-paid salaries.
Mitsotakis was born in Chania, Crete, on October 18 1918, only five years after the island’s secession from the Ottoman Empire, and its union with Greece, was internationally acknowledged. His father was an MP who had led volunteers in the First Balkan War against the Turks. His uncle was the statesman Eleftherios Venizelos, regarded as the father of the modern Greek nation.
Constantine read Law, Politics and Economics at Athens University, graduating just as war came. He joined the resistance in Crete and was twice imprisoned and sentenced to death. In 1946 he entered parliament as its youngest member, aged 28, representing the Liberal Party founded by his grandfather.
By 1951 he was in the cabinet and in the early Sixties was finance minister in the elder Papandreou’s Centre Union coalition. When the Colonels seized power, he was arrested but managed to flee into exile in Paris. He returned in 1977, once democracy had been restored, and joined the ND, headed by Kostas Karamanlis.
He was finance and then foreign minister before being elected party leader in 1984. he was regarded by conservatives as the only orator who could hold his own with Papandreou, and mass rallies, accompanied by much banner-waving, became a feature of Greek life of the era.
Two of Mitsotakis’s children followed him into politics. His eldest daughter Dora was mayor of Athens at the time of the 2004 Olympics. Later she became foreign minister but lost the contest to lead ND to Samaras (prime minister 2012-15).
Among his ministers was Mitsotakis’s son Kyriakos, who became leader of ND last year. His father defied expectations that he would stand for the country’s presidency, preferring to spend time with his collection of Minoan antiques and supporting schemes to reafforest Crete.
Constantine Mitsotakis married, in 1953, Maria Giannoukou. She died in 2012 and he is survived by their son and three daughters.
Konstantinos Mitsotakis, born Oct 18 1918, died May 29 2017