Friday, Jul. 12, 1968

Conflict over a Constitution

When he led the military coup that overthrew the constitutionally elected government of Greece 15 months ago, Colonel George Papadopoulos showed no regard for legal niceties. Backed by 300 or so young officers, he scrapped Greece's constitution and jailed scores of members of the Greek Parliament, most of whom have since been released. Last week, in an ironic turnabout, Papadopoulos tried to persuade some of the young officers who brought him to power to agree to make public a new constitution for Greece. So far, Papadopoulos, who is now Greece's junta-appointed Premier, has twice been forced to set back the scheduled release date of the document. Even if he manages to present it to the Greek public this week, the delays underscore the private power struggles that tear at the shadowy revolutionary council, whose 38 or so members make the major government decisions. Papadopoulos is pressing his cause with a special urgency. Worried about the feuding factions within the council, he feels that a constitution would somehow make less likely his regime's possible overthrow by military hotheads.

Resentment of Civilians. Trouble has been brewing for months between Papadopoulos and the council's dozen or so hardliners, whose most influential member is Colonel loannis Ladas, the chief of Greece's internal security system. The hard-liners are ardently antiCommunist, antiRoyalist and in favor of a state of "continued revolution" to purge Greece of its "imperfections." In the first months after the coup, Papadopoulos placed a number of the hard-liners in various important ministries. Though they held a second-rank title of secretary-general, they actually told the ministers what to do. But as Papadopoulos consolidated his own power and turned in his own uniform for civilian clothes, he relied less and less on the hardliners. Moreover, in an effort to make his regime more acceptable to Greece's allies, he brought into the Cabinet nonpolitical civilian experts, including university professors and economists, who refused to take orders from behind-the-scenes military bosses.

The dispute between Papadopoulos and the hard-liners came to a head over the proposed constitution, which was drafted by a 20-man commission of Greek jurists (TIME, Jan. 26). In its present form, the draft retains the monarchy, but severely limits the once broad powers of the throne. The King loses his most important function--that of appointing the Premier. In the future, the Premier will be chosen either in direct elections by the people or elected by Parliament. The King is also stripped of his post as commander of the armed forces and may no longer rule by decree in times of national emergency.

The legislative and executive functions of government would be split into separate branches, and Parliament, one-fifth of whose members would be appointed by the ruling government, would have almost no power over the Premier. Greece's fractious voters would be reduced to casting their ballots for or against the government in power, with no guarantee that they could muster enough strength to overcome the ruling regime's 20% edge.

Hard-Line Objections. Papadopoulos favors the present draft. He wants to solve the problem of what to do with King Constantine by bringing him back from exile in Rome as a purely ceremonial monarch. He also feels that Greece is ready to return to constitutional rule, and that he has become popular enough among the Greek people to win a nationwide election that would legalize his government. The hard-liners believe that the revolution has not yet accomplished its task, bitterly oppose retaining any vestige of royalty. Papadopoulos may prevail upon them to let him bring out the proposed constitution, which he hopes to submit to a public vote on Sept. 1. Even so, he can hardly expect the document to afford him much more protection than the earlier one gave former Premier Panayotis Kanellopoulos, when Papadopoulos decided to have him arrested. He is still under house arrest.

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