Talk:Greek constitutional amendment of 1986

WP:CLOP and/or WP:POV issue by user (again)

The user Ashmedai 119 reverted an edit to fix a WP:CLOP and/or WP:POV. Here outline how the recent edit. The edit based on the conclusion of the Katsoudas in Featherstone & Katsoudas 1990 reference.

(Katsoudas in Featherstone & Katsoudas 1987 pp 30-31) It would be hypocritical to claim that the recent changes of the Greek Constitution of 1975 must necessarily be viewed negatively. For, whatever the merits of having a potential pole of power for ultimately checking excessive governmental growth, the fact that such a pole could exist, even hypothetically, even in a crisis, is certainly not an orthodox component of the parliamentary system. Moreover, Greece has, by now, a long history, since 1864, of living with exactly such a system. Behind the easy label of 'now dictatorship, now - again - democracy' the fact is that, in 122 years, only eleven were under dictatorial rule. It must also be noted that this has occurred in a not particularly democratic neighbourhood, as a quick glance at the map shows. With the revision, the present charter comes back to the 1864/1911/1952 line - modernised - and justifies the name of 'revisionary' for the Parliament in 1975, posthumously.

The user wrote edit:

Political scientist Dimitrios Katsoudas wrote that the constitutional revision could be viewed positively, as the existence of a pole of power checking the government "is certainly not an orthodox component of the parliamentary system." He also argued that the revision restored in modernised form the parliamentary system that had governed Greece as a democracy since 1864 with only 11 years of dictatorial rule.

There are several issues with this edit.

1. The user created a WP:POV by cherry-picking approach by ignoring the analysis of the main body that effectively described the constitutional reform (the main subject of the current article) as "unnecessary" and "broke the already established legality of the new Constitution". Attempting to present only the positive aspect of the source the user created a blatant WP:POV that I had to fix .
2. It is too close in paraphrasing the original text WP:CLOP and given that the original text can be best understood by reading the whole chapter, taking such a similar description from the original without the appropriate context this leads to erroneous conclusions. For example,
   • "[...] the parliamentary system that had governed Greece as a democracy since 1864 [...]" Greece indeed had a parliamentary system of all these years but it was not a democracy for most of these years. Greece was a crowned republic, where the executive branch (king and/or prime minister) had considerable powers where the parliament was on the sidelines. The user appears that used it from the slogan/label "... now dictatorship, now - again - democracy..." (which the author possibly used to describe the transition from the Greek Junta to the Third Hellenic Republic) and claims that in all those years from 1864 till the 1980s Greece was always a democracy. I have hard time to see how for example, the years before the Goudi coup Greece was a democracy in any meaningful way. That's not what the author said nor it is supported by other evidence. While this can be viewed as a good faith error, when I removed the term "democracy", the user simply reverted back thus insisting in the particular wording . I assume that the user can demonstrate how Greece was a "democracy" in all these years. Not to mention that the author did not described Greece being democratic all these years. The author simply described, as I read it, that most modern Greek history the parliament was subject to a single pole of power (king or prime minister) and this was stable enough since over ~120 years only 11 were under dictatorship. I do not see how democracy comes in to play or even being relevant to what the author is trying to say.
   • the word "modernised" seems out of place in the article as it is not clear what "modernized form" means even in the original it is too convoluted or just unnecessary jargon. Again the user insists to keep this out of place wording and fails to edit by using his own words as it is expected in WP.
   • Another subtle WP:POV: "only 11 years" the "only" is not needed as it is subjective. The author may used it to make a point, but here is an encyclopedia and we stick to the facts and the fact is the it was "11 years". For others even one year of dictatorship is way too much. Again, while I removed, the user simply reverted back.

Since the user Ashmedai 119 has been causing issues elsewhere (for a summary see ) by acting as if knows all, it is only fair to reveal the failure of the user in following WP rules in a single edit.A.Cython (talk) 06:13, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, the label "now dictatorship, now - again - democracy" can only mean the transition from the Greek Junta to the 3rd Republic. The other dictatorship, that of Metaxas, was four years that ended with the Axis occupation, followed immediately by a civil war (1946-1949), so the label cannot be used anywhere else. The word "again" suggests that Greece had moments of democratic rule (though we need to be careful about what that means), only to be regularly interrupted by non-democratic regimes, and no, I do not mean the 11 years of dictatorship.

• 1864-1909: The king remained essentially supreme despite some constitutional restraints, and he effectively controlled the government. Not very democratic, the situation was so bad that the army had to intervene in the 1909 Goudi coup. This period cannot be called democratic, if anything else, sources regularly described Greece as the "Kingdom of Greece"... where the king effectively continued to rule as an unrestricted monarch. Foreign powers still played a dominant role in the government's decisions.
• 1909-1916: Things start to shine for Greece with a new constitution and progressive reforms; however, good things did not last.
• 1916-1917: For a couple of years, Greece became divided with the National Schism (big dispute between the king and the prime minister), and temporarily, the king was exiled. Democracy took a back seat.
• 1920s and early 1930s: Here again, a turbulent decade for Greece, where it can hardly be described as democratic. The country experienced several coups, changed the constitution a few times, the king returned, and there was legislation to suppress workers' rights due to fears of communism, among other things.
• 1936-1940: Metaxas' totalitarian regime
• 1940-1945: Axis occupation
• 1946-1949: Civil war (royal forces against communists, with the victory of the former)
• 1949-1952: A quasi-military regime till a new constitution is founded, I would not call these years democratic either.
• 1952-1965: A new constitution (with the king still having considerable powers) that significantly suppressed individual rights, and the leftists were greatly suppressed, e.g., the communist party was outlawed, and many were exiled.
• 1965-1967: The king prevented elections for two years, creating a constitutional crisis. Can we call these years democratic?
• 1967-1974: Greek Junta
• 1974-today: For the first time, Greece has a stable government.

Now, can someone point out to me how Greece can be called democratic for most of the years between 1864 and the 1980s? We call the years after 1975 democratic... so that's 12 (until 1987, when the book was written), and let's say for the sake of the argument the periods 1955-1965 (as there was a slow acceptance of the center-left with Karamanlis) and 1909-1916 under Venizelos (still having a king interfering) were leaning democratic (not quite but). That's 12+7+10=29 years. 29 years out of 123 years is not the majority, even if we remove the 11 (+5 Axis occupation) years from the total. Thus, the statement is inconsistent with Greek history overall, not to mention that the author does **not** make such a claim. A very good explanation needs to be provided soon from Ashmedai 119 for such a blunt WP:POV and reverting an attempt to fix it. A.Cython (talk) 02:36, 23 April 2025 (UTC)