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Andreas Papandreu Biography

Andreas Papandreu

(Chios, 1919-Athens, 1996) Greek politician.Son of the former prime minister, Giorgos Papandreu, he studied law at the University of Athens and economics at Harvard University.In 1941, after being imprisoned and tortured during the Metaxas dictatorship, he was released and went to the United States, where his entire family emigrated.In 1944 he obtained North American citizenship.He was Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Minnesota, Northewestern, Berkeley; and Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Science.He was also a Marine in the US Navy and married twice, the second time to the American Margaret Chant in the early 1950s.

In 1959 he returned to Greece in order to conduct research on economic development.In 1961 he was appointed president of the Administrative Council and director of the Center for Economic Research and advisor to the Bank of Greece.He began his political career in 1962.Two years later, in the legislative elections of February 16, 1964, he was elected deputy of the province of Achaía by the Central Union Party that was then headed by his father, Giorgios Papandreu.After the victory of the Unión de Centro in 1964, he was appointed Minister of the Presidency of the Council and, a year later, Deputy Minister of the Coordination in the last Government that his father presided.

With the implementation of the dictatorship of the colonels, in April 1967, he was arrested like his father, going into exile the following year in Sweden and later in Canada.In 1968 he was Professor of Economics at Stockholm University and, from 1968 to 1974, at York University in Toronto (Canada).In 1968 he founded the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK) which developed an active resistance until the fall of the dictatorial regime in July 1974.

With the establishment of democracy in Greece, he returned from exile and founded, in September of the same year, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) that he himself presided.In the first democratic general elections, PASOK became the main opposition party with 93 deputies.In the general elections of October 18, 1981, in which PASOK participated under the slogan of change , it achieved an absolute victory, with 174 deputies, taking a twelve-point advantage over the conservative opposition represented for New Democracy.The PASOK president formed his government.

In the first socialist cabinet, Andreas Papandreu assumed, in addition to the position of prime minister, the portfolio of the Ministry of National Defense.In the legislative elections of 1985, PASOK once again achieved an absolute majority, with 161 seats, 45.82 percent of the 300 seats in Parliament.In 1987 he repeated his success.Andreas Papandreu was admitted, on August 25, 1988, to a London hospital due to a narrowing of the aorta, where he underwent a surgical intervention with a satisfactory result.

The political figure of Andreas Papandreu was seen deteriorated at the beginning of 1989 by a political-financial scandal carried out by George Kokostas, owner of a group of Press, Grammi.Apparently, Kokostas made friends with personalities close to Papandreou based on generous credits with other people's money.The plot was investigated by the FBI, who was looking for him for his possible relationship in various fraud.The banker accused Papandreou of having received money for personal use and of using Bank of Crete funds to finance PASOK campaigns in 1985.The scandal prompted the opposition party, New Democracy, to file a motion of no confidence against Papandreou , which did not prosper as the Greek Prime Minister had 155 votes against 123 for the opposition, in a 300-seat Parliament.

On June 18, 1989, in the Legislative Elections, the Prime Minister He suffered the great defeat of his political career, when the New Democracy party led by Constantin Mitsotakis prevailed.That same day, the Prime Minister suffered from pneumonia that would culminate in heart and kidney deficiency that kept him in a steady state for several days.

Andreas was later accused of having ordered illegal tapping of the telephones of various journalists and his political opponents.Parliament approved to withdraw his parliamentary immunity along with four other deputies so that they could be tried.After almost two years of the accusation, on January 4, 1992, the trial against him for embezzlement of 210 million dollars through the Bank of Crete concluded, and on January 17 he was declared innocent of the accusations of moral instigation to blackmail , to bribery and fraud.

In the legislative elections of October 10, 1993, he ran as a candidate for his party, PASOK, obtaining an absolute majority with 171 of the 300 parliamentary seats.On October 12, he received the mandate from the president, Caramanlis, to form a government; and on the 13th the new ministers were sworn in.Re-elected president of PASOK on April 17, 1994, in July of that year Papandreou formed a new government.On November 29, 1994, he resigned to present his candidacy for the Presidency of the Republic, a possibility that had been pointed out for several months.

On September 14, 1995 he carried out a new restructuring of his Government, of which Several ministers who had been critical of Papandreou's foreign and economic policy were excluded.On November 20 of that same year, he was hospitalized at the Onasio cardiological center in Athens, suffering from pneumonia.In early 1996, Papandreou's prolonged illness led to an internal crisis in PASOK, and finally, on January 15 this year, he resigned from the post of Prime Minister.

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