New Democracy (Greece)

New Democracy (Greece)

New Democracy (Greek: Νέα Δημοκρατία, Néa Dimokratía, literally New Republic, also known by its acronym ΝΔ, ND) is the main centre-right political party and one of the two major parties in Greece. Its leader, Antonis Samaras, is the Prime Minister of Greece.

The party was founded in 1974 by Konstantinos Karamanlis and formed the first cabinet of the Third Hellenic Republic. After serving as the Cabinet of Greece from 2004 to 2009 and its landslide defeat in the 2009 Greek elections, in which they recorded their historical lowest percentage of votes, New Democracy received more votes than any other individual party in the Greek elections of May 2012, but did not manage to form a majority government. In the re-run of the election in June 2012, New Democracy again received the highest number of votes, but did not win an outright majority. However, it was able to negotiate a coalition with PASOK (its main historic rival) and DIMAR, with Samaras becoming the Prime Minister. New Democracy is a member of the European People's Party and currently has 7 out of 22 Greek MEPs in the European Parliament.