Panhellenic Socialist Movement leadership election, 2007

A leadership election was held on November 11, 2007 in the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), Greece's main centre-left party, after it was defeated in the parliamentary election earlier that year. The incumbent, George Papandreou, had stated right after the general elections that he would ask party members to renew their confidence in him, while Evangelos Venizelos and Kostas Skandalidis also declared themselves candidates.

Election districts were open from 9:00AM until 8:00PM local time In some districts the process finished at 9:30AM due to large number of people willing to vote. Voting it was scheduled to take place in 1,405 polling stations throughout the country and 86 in other countries and after merging some small stations it took place in 1,376. The procedure was fully electronically and was supported by 3,310 computers handled by 3,900 personnel. The registered voters are 347,991 members and 626,675 people in the status of the "friend of the party". The total number of voters, members and friends of the Movement older than 16 years old, was more than 700,000.

Initial results on the day of the election showed Papandreou winning a majority. At 10:00PM Skandalidis called Papandreou to congratulate him on his victory and some minutes later Venizelos did the same.

According to official final results, announced on November 14, George Papandreou was the victor with 55.91%, followed by Evangelos Venizelos with 38.18% and Kostas Skandalidis with 5.74%. Exit polls had published similar results.

A few hours after the results of the parliamentary elections were announced, on the night of Sunday, September 16, 2007, the leader of the defeated opposition party, George Papandreou, conceded defeat and made an announcement at PASOK's press-conference room in the Harilaos Trikoupis street building that houses the party HQ, asking all members of his party to find their own responsibilities for the defeat. He also declared that he would assume the part of the responsibility that belongs to him, by requesting the reaffirmation of his leadership by his fellow party members.

Shortly after, the winner of the elections Kostas Karamanlis gave the first post-election press conference of the winning party, New Democracy, in the Zappeion hall, declaring victory. Traditionally, the Zappeion hall houses all serious political announcements in Greece.

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