Since its founding, the party's emblem had been the anchor, similar to the one Venizelos had brought with him from Crete.[6]
History
Founded as the Xipoliton ("barefoot") party in Crete (then an autonomous region of the Ottoman Empire), its early leaders were Kostis Mitsotakis (grandfather of Konstantinos Mitsotakis) and Eleftherios Venizelos. After the annexation of Crete by Greece, Venizelos moved to Athens and turned the party into a national one, under the Fileleftheron (liberal) name in 1910. For the following 25 years, the fate of the party would be tied to that of Venizelos. The party was legally disbanded after the failed coup attempt led by Nikolaos Plastiras of 1935, although the organization remained active.
Caricature of Venizelos with the anchor, symbol of the party
The party was reformed after the war. By the 1950s, the Liberal Party had lost much of its support and it was eventually merged into the Centre Union, which went on to win the 1963 and 1964 elections. Throughout its existence, the Liberal Party sought to hinder the rise of the Communist Party of Greece which was the only real opposition to the Liberals on their most important electoral basis (the refugees of the New Lands, i.e., lands acquired by Greece following the Balkan Wars and World War I), sometimes with the use of anti-communist legislation.[7][8]
In 1980, Eleftherios Venizelos' grandson Nikitas founded a new party under the same name that claims to be the continuation of the original party, see Liberal Party (Greece, modern).
Ideology
Representing the centrist elements of Greek society, and supported by the middle class and the populations of the New Lands, its main competitor was the People's Party. Increasingly the Liberal Party became associated with anti-monarchism and during the 1920s the Liberals established a republic which they led for most of its short-lived existence. The party carried the ideological legacy of Venizelism.
Electoral results
Results, 1910–1958[9][10] (year links to election page)
^ abHatzivassiliou, Evanthis (2010), "Greek Liberalism in the Twentieth Century Dilemmas of Research", The Constantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy Yearbook 2010, Springer, p. 124
^Varnava, Andrekos (2012), "British and Greek Liberalism and Imperialism", Liberal Imperialism in Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 229–235, Venizelist liberalism and imperialism not only was connected to British liberalism and liberal approaches to imperialism, but was also a product of it. Although looking East for territory, Venizelist imperialism looked to unite the "unredeemed Greeks" living in the East under an "orientalist" pre-modern system with the Europe that was (or would be) Modern Greece - western, modern and liberal.
^Roudometof, Victor (2002), Collective Memory, National Identity, and Ethnic Conflict: Greece, Bulgaria, and the Macedonian Question, Praeger Publishers, p. 98
^Εισηγείται στο δεύτερο συνέδριο του κόμματος στη Θεσσαλονίκη την οριστική αντικατάσταση του τίτλου «Δημοκρατική Ένωσις» από τον τίτλο «Αγροτικόν και Εργατικόν Κόμμα» (Proposes to the second party congress in Thessalonikithe definitive replacement of the title "Democratic Union" by the "Agricultural and Labour Party".) Nikolaou, Serafeim (2008). Αλέξανδρος Παπαναστασίου. Athens: The Hellenic Parliament Foundation. p. 4.