Martial law is lifted in Greece in February 1950 in preparation for the first general election since 1946.

The social upheavals of wartime had enfranchised parts of society previously excluded from political participation; women, emancipated in some ways under the PEEA, are to receive the right to vote in 1951.

In the election of 1950, no fewer than forty-four parties, most of them centered on individual politicians rather than political principles, contest the two hundred and fifty seats in parliament.

Tsaldaris and the Populists win a plurality of only sixty-two, giving the balance of power to a group of center-right parties: the Liberals, led by Sophocles Venizelos, the son of the former prime minister, the National Progressive Center Union under General Plastiras, and the Georgios Papandreou Party.

These three parties agree to form a coalition government with Plastiras at the helm.