PASOK

The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Greek: Πανελλήνιο Σοσιαλιστικό Κίνημα, romanized: Panellínio Sosialistikó Kínima, pronounced [paneˈlini.o sosi.alistiˈko ˈcinima]), known mostly by its acronym PASOK, (/pəˈsɒk/; ΠΑΣΟΚ, pronounced [paˈsok]) is a social-democratic political party in Greece. Until 2012 it was one of the two major parties in the country, along with New Democracy, its main political rival. In the June 2023 Greek legislative election it once again held firm on to its position of one of the ”big three” political parties of Greece.

Following the collapse of the Greek military dictatorship of 1967–1974, PASOK was founded on 3 September 1974 as a socialist party.

Formerly the largest left-wing party in Greece between 1977 and 2012, PASOK lost much of its popular support as a result of the Greek debt crisis. PASOK was the ruling party when the economic crisis began, and it negotiated the first Greek bailout package with the European troika, which necessitated harsh austerity measures. This caused a significant loss in the party's popularity. It was part of two coalition governments from 2011 to 2015, during which further austerity measures were taken in response to the crisis. Due to these measures and the crisis, PASOK went from being the largest party in the Hellenic Parliament with 160 seats (43.92% of the popular vote) in the 2009 election to being the smallest party with 13 seats (4.68% of the popular vote) in the January 2015 election. This decline became known as Pasokification.

To halt the party's decline, Fofi Gennimata was elected as the new president of the party and formed a political alliance known as the Democratic Alignment (DISY). In the September 2015 election, DISY was the fourth most voted-for party. In 2018, PASOK merged into a new political alliance of centre-left parties, again led by Gennimata, called the Movement for Change (KINAL), becoming the third largest party in the parliament in the 2019 election.