Konstantinos Tsaldaris

Konstantinos Tsaldaris

Konstantinos Tsaldaris ( Greek Κωνσταντίνος Τσαλδάρης , * 1884 in Alexandria , Egypt , † 1970 in Athens ) was a Greek politician and prime minister.

Studies and professional activity

Tsaldaris grew up in Alexandria, his godchild was the later famous gallery owner Alexander Iolas . Tsaldaris studied law at the National and Kapodistrian Universities of Athens and at the universities of Berlin , London and Florence .

During his work as a lawyer, he was politically active in the then Corinthian prefecture from 1915 to 1917 .

Political career

Deputy and Junior Minister

His actual political career began in 1926 when he was elected MP for the constituencies of Argolida and Corinth in the National Assembly (Voulí ton Ellínon) . There he represented the interests of the party of the liberal-minded (freethinker party) of Ioannis Metaxas . However, in 1928 he became a member of the People's Party (LK) led by his uncle Panagis Tsaldaris . From March 1933 to October 1935, he was Deputy Minister for Transport in the latter's second cabinet. In the subsequent cabinets of Georgios Kondylis and Konstantinos Demertzis he was Undersecretary in the Prime Minister's Office until April 1936. After the death of his uncle on May 17, 1936, he became a member of the executive board of the LK, which, however, was soon dissolved during the Metaxas dictatorship.

Party leader and prime minister

After Greece was liberated from the occupation of the German armed forces during the Second World War , he was elected chairman of the re-established LK in 1944. As leader of the right-wing United Patriotic Alliance, an electoral alliance of which he was the top candidate won the general election on March 31, 1946 . He was then Prime Minister from April 18, 1946 to January 25, 1947. During his tenure, the referendum on the re-establishment of the monarchy was held on September 1, 1946 . From August 29 to November 7, 1947 he was again Prime Minister of a transitional government. In his governments he also always took over the management of the Foreign Ministry.

In the governments of Dimitrios Maximos (January to August 1947) and Themistoklis Sofoulis and Alexandros Diomidis (November 1947 to January 1950) he was Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister. From 1947 to 1949 he was also head of the representation at the UN General Assembly .

Election defeats and withdrawal from politics

After the founding and rise of the party “Greek Gathering” (ES) of Marshal Alexandros Papagos in 1951, his People's Party lost a large part of its regular electorate and then failed in the parliamentary elections on November 16, 1952 Electoral alliance with the Democratic Union and was re-elected as a member of parliament. In the parliamentary elections on May 11, 1958, he lost his mandate again. Then he dissolved the LK; Most of the LK members switched to the National Radical Union (ERE) of the then Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis . Tsaldaris (now over 70 years old) withdrew from politics.

Biographical sources and background information

• biography
• Election results 1926–1936 ( Memento from February 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Election results 1946–1958
• Lists of government ministers 1946–1951 ( Memento from July 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
• Konstantin Tsaldaris in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Newspaper article about Konstantinos Tsaldaris in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see en: 1946 Greek referendum

predecessor	Office	successor
Panagiotis Poulitsas	Prime Minister of Greece 1946–1947	Dimitrios Maximos
Dimitrios Maximos	Prime Minister of Greece 1947	Themistoklis Sofoulis