Konstantinos Karamanlis

When Alexandros Papagos died after a brief illness (1955), King Paul of Greece appointed the 48-year-old Karamanlis as Prime Minister. The King did so, thus bypassing Stephanos Stephanopoulos and Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, the two senior Greek Rally politicians who were widely considered as the heavyweights most likely to succeed Papagos. Karamanlis first became prime minister in 1955, and reorganized the Greek Rally as the National Radical Union. One of the first bills he promoted as Prime Minister, implemented the extension of full voting rights to women, which stood dormant although nominally approved in 1952. Karamanlis won three successive elections (1956, 1958 and 1961).