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Andreas Papandreou

Andreas Georgiou Papandreou (, ; 5 February 1919 – 23 June 1996) was a Greek academic and economist who founded the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and served three terms as prime minister of Greece.

Papandreou was born in 1919, the son of Georgios Papandreou. In 1938, in his early 20s, Papandreou left Greece for United States to escape the Metaxas' dictatorship (1936–1941) and became a prominent academic. Papandreou returned to Greece in 1959 after years of resisting his father's entreaties. His father, Georgios Papandreou, who was now Prime Minister of Greece, wanted him to return so that he could prepare him as his successor. However, Papandreou's rapid ascension, together with his uncompromising radical rhetoric only amplified Greece's post-civil war political instability, which created the conditions for a group of colonels to stage a coup d'etat and rule Greece for seven years.

Papandreou was exiled during the Greek Junta, with many, even his father, blaming him for the fall of democracy. While in exile, Papandreou developed and spread an anti-American, conspiratorial narrative of past events, in which he was a victim of larger forces. On his return in 1974, Papandreou created PASOK, the first organised Greek socialist party. Papandreou's populist rhetoric resonated with the Greek people who sought a break from the failed politics of the past, along with the mounting pressure from the 1970s energy crisis. PASOK won the elections in 1981 and Papandreou began to implement a transformative social agenda, expanding access to education and healthcare, reinforcing workers' rights, and passing a new family law that elevated the position of women in society and the economy. He also secured official recognition of the communist resistance groups in the Greek Resistance making it easier for communist refugees from the Greek Civil War to return. His governance, however, was tarnished by numerous corruption scandals, a soft stance on terrorism, damage to democratic institutions, a public divorce and subsequent marriage to an air stewardesses half his age, controversial foreign policy decisions, and a constitutional crisis which he had instigated. Under Papandreou, the Greek economy diverged from the European average as a result of large-scale patronage, misuse of European Union funds, and excessive foreign borrowing, which resulted in Greece earning the reputation of Europe's "black sheep".

Papandreou died in 1996 at the age of 77. He had transformed Greece's post-junta liberal democracy into a "populist democracy" that continues to resonate with many Greeks. His son, George Papandreou became the leader of PASOK in February 2004 and, in part invoking his father's memory, was elected prime minister in 2009. Provided by Wikipedia