Democratic Liberals (Greece)

The Democratic Liberals or Party of Democratic Liberals^[1] (Greek: Κόμμα Δημοκρατικών Φιλελεύθερων)^[2] was the name of two political groups in Greece in the 1920s.

History

The "Democratic Liberals" were a group within the Liberal Party who supported Greece becoming a republic. The group was formed during the campaign period of the 1923 elections where the change from a constitutional monarchy to a republic was the dominant issue. Disagreeing with the party leadership, which advocated changing the constitution in due course after a referendum on the matter, the Democratic Liberals led by George Roussos [el] sided with the position of the Democratic Union, which called for an immediate change of the constitution before a referendum was held.^[3] Running on a joint platform, the Democratic Liberals–Democratic Union alliance won 120 of the 398 seats in parliament.^[4]

The second group contested the 1926 parliamentary elections, running only in the Lesbos constituency, where they received 29% of the vote and won three of the eight seats allocated to the constituency, which were taken by Stylianos Kritikos [el], Maliakas Lailios and Byron Karapanagiotis [el].^[2] The groups did not contest any further elections.^[1]