Costas Karamanlis, a Fletcher graduate and Tufts' 2005 Commencement speaker, was reelected to a second term as Prime Minister of Greece on Sept. 16.
Karamanlis, the head of Greece's conservative New Democracy (ND) Party and the first Tufts graduate to become a head of state, won with a 41.8 percent plurality.
But he only squeaked by his opponent in the socialist PASOK Party by 3 percent and ND lost 13 seats in the country's 300-member parliament. PASOK also lost seats, going from 117 to 102.
Many attribute the mediocre showing of the country's top two parties to fallout from the government's handling of the wildfires that ravaged the country in August, killing 65 people and causing at least $1.6 billion in damages.
"The fires exposed a state that didn't really know what it was doing," said Yannis Ioannides, who is the Max and Herta Neubauer Professor of Economics as well as a Greek citizen.
"[The people] didn't say it was Karamanlis' fault," he said. "They just decided that the two major parties that had been in power in the last 25 years were to blame."
The result was that three fringe parties - including one far-right party that didn't have any representation in Parliament before the recent elections - now hold 46 seats.
This month's elections, which Karamanlis used his authority as prime minister to call for in August, came six months before the legal deadline for them.
Prime ministers generally call for early elections when they sense a strategic benefit in doing so, and Yiorgos Chouliaras, the director of press and communications at the Greek Embassy in Washington, D.C., said that this was no exception.
"The prime minister called for early elections to provide his government with a fresh mandate for further reforms and especially an important state budget for 2008 and revisions to the constitution," he said.
Carrying out some of his goals may be difficult, however, as Karamanlis found out after eking out victory on Sunday in a parliamentary vote of confidence with only one vote to spare. This vote gave him the go-ahead to pursue parts of his reform package, the most important parts of which are an overhaul of the pay-as-you-go pension system and a continuation of efforts to bust up the government's constitutional monopoly over university education.
Ioannides called universities in Greece a "mess" and junior and Greek citizen Dimitris Georgantopoulos agreed.
"Greek universities are literally the biggest joke. Because they're free ... kids can stay there for years and years and never go to class," he said.
Ioannides is happy about Karamanlis' enthusiasm about reforming higher education in Greece, and thinks that he has a strong "central economics team," but is skeptical about whether he will be able to actually implement this part of his platform.
"I'm not sure about the reforms in the education system not because of the quality of the principles, but because it requires a constitutional amendment. It's a really different process [and is] very complicated." he said.
Georgantopoulos expressed similar concern about the state's ability to follow through with its reforms.
"I think he could succeed but I don't think he has yet. I think there's a significant failure in communicating [to the Greek people] what the reasoning behind the reforms is," he said.
Ioannides said that Karamanlis comes across as "very genuine" although he only knows his public persona.
Georgantopoulos said that Karamanlis "keeps a very low profile."
"Whereas most Greek politicians tend to be more flamboyant and love being on TV, ... he's very low-key which gives us the impression that he's a very hard worker," he said.
Karamanlis got a master's degree from Fletcher in 1982 and a Ph.D. there in 1984.
"His time at Tufts was something that was very important to him," Chouliaras said.
Karamanlis spoke and received an
honorary doctorate. at Tufts' 2005 Commencement.
"I think he greatly appreciated such an honor coming from his old school, both personally and as the prime minister," Chouliaras said.
In his Commencement speech, Karamanlis told graduates that "the multinational environment fostered at Tufts, an environment where differences are understood and respected, broadened my perspective and gave me a wider view of the world, as I know it did for all of you," according to Tufts E-News.
"If you can make it at Tufts, you can make it anywhere," he said.
Karamanlis' uncle, the late Konstantinos (Constantine) Karamanlis, served as prime minister from 1955 to 1963 and from 1974 to 1980, and as president from 1980 to 1985 and from 1990 to 1995.
The chair of Hellenic and Southeastern European Studies at Fletcher is named after Konstantinos, whom Karamanlis, in his speech, called "a visionary who led the reconstruction of Greece after World War II and guided our country to full membership in the European Union."
Bruce Hamilton contributed reporting to this article.
