52 years of New Democracy: Mitsotakis closes the celebratory evening and promises victory in the 2027 elections too

New Democracy celebrated the 52nd anniversary of its founding (October 4, 1974) with a jubilee evening at the former OSY bus depot in Athens, at the junction of Peiraios and Ermou streets, starting at 18:00, as creta24.gr reports. The evening’s programme included a digital journey through the party’s history, a quiz on the history of New Democracy, a 360-degree photo booth and basketball hoops, while the return of the historic pine tree to the anniversary’s visual identity gave the celebration a special dimension, linking the evening directly to the founding year of 1974.

The pine tree, as newsonline.gr reports, was the party’s emblem from the late 1970s and was officially adopted in the mid-1980s; its presence at this year’s celebration symbolically returned the party to its roots, to its founding by “Ethnarch” Konstantinos Karamanlis on October 4, 1974.

The evening was closed with the keynote speech by Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who said in his address that he was moved to see among the audience the party’s old fighters with the flags of the great battles of the Konstantinos Mitsotakis era. “New Democracy has managed four times to win consecutive elections with percentages above 40% — with ‘Ethnarch’ Konstantinos Karamanlis, with Konstantinos Mitsotakis, with Kostas Karamanlis and with all of us together in the 2019 elections and in the double elections of 2023 — and we will do it again in the 2027 elections,” he declared, according to mirmidones.gr.

The evening did not lack notable absences either: former prime minister Antonis Samaras, who over the weekend had attacked New Democracy and the Maximos Mansion, and former prime minister Kostas Karamanlis, who was away from Athens.

The 52nd anniversary celebration came at a moment when New Democracy is preparing for the next electoral cycle, with Mitsotakis using the evening to strengthen the message of internal unity and to place his political bet on victory in the 2027 elections.