Political Drama in a Classic Setting

For Greece's first election in more than a decade, Syntagma Square in Athens became a stage in a classic setting.

To the east there was the sandstone Parliament building, its doors still shuttered after seven years of dictatorial rule. To the south there was the stately Acropolis, a more distant symbol of the contest to be waged. During the last three nights of the campaign, the leading political par ties came to Syntagma Square to stage their final rallies and make their last pitch to the voters -- as stirring a symbol of Greece's return to democracy as the election itself. TIME'S Dean Brelis attended the rallies and sent this report:

The pigeons that normally fly around the tomb of the Unknown Soldier in eccentric circles had disappeared.

So had the ever-present outdoor tables and chairs of the sidewalk cafes. Even the awnings had been furled into safe tight rolls. And then the stage was readied: megaphones and loudspeakers were set up, political banners strung, and huge powerful arc lights borrowed from movie studios were brought out to illuminate the scene for television.

ACT I The first act belonged to the Communists. As the throngs marched into the square, singing and chanting as they unfurled their red banners, it brought back vivid memories to many oldtimers.

"I feel the hair on my arms rising," said one 58-year-old man, an English teacher. "The last time we were here was in December 1944. There were thousands of us. Then shots broke out. No one knows to this day who fired them, but a child belonging to a Communist family was killed. We brought the body into the lobby of the Grande Bretagne Hotel where the foreign correspondents were staying and told them, 'The civil war has begun.' Tonight we are not going to hear gunfire. We are going to hear the exquisite sound of Greeks stating their identity and their beliefs."

Then they started, a hundred thousand strong, to sing the songs of Mikis Theodorakis. Beaming and exuberant as he led the singing, the once exiled composer said, "The people have won. We have proved once more that we are stronger. They have tanks. We have ide als and songs." There were calls for se vere punishment of the arrested leaders of the junta, and countless banners proclaiming CIA AND NATO--BETRAYERS.

Although sharp ideological differences had emerged among the three Communist groups during the campaign--a fact that undoubtedly contributed to their poor electoral showing--this night they could all share in the mood of jubilation that Communists of every leaning were no longer members of an underground but free and open citizens of Greece. As the music died, shortly before midnight, the crowd dispersed peacefully, still smiling and humming.

ACT II

The next afternoon two minor earthquakes hit Athens--strong enough to make windows rattle, tables and chairs tremble. A fitting prelude to Andreas Papandreou's appearance in Syntagma Square? Perhaps. For the former Berkeley and Harvard economics professor, leader of the new Panhellenic Socialist Movement (Pasok), had brought an unsettling element to the campaign. Barnstorming the country in a black leather jacket, followed by hordes of young people in jeans and faded army field jackets, he brought a new style of campaigning to Greece and emerged as a political messiah of the young.

When he appeared in the square, wearing a bright red shirt, the crowd of 150,000 greeted him with a thunderous explosion of cheers and firecrackers. "Our country should be reconstructed so that it may belong to all Greeks," Papandreou began. He went on to promise that if elected, he would rid Greece of all American bases, pull Athens out of NATO's political councils, provide free medical care for all, ensure equal rights for women and bring about a measure of economic socialism. The crowd marched out chanting, "Tonight the right is dying." Watching the huge rally on TV, many bourgeois Greeks were shaken by Papandreou's performance. "Why," said one well-to-do woman, "they mean to come into our homes and take everything and share it."

ACT III

There was a strong wind blowing across Syntagma Square Friday evening. In front of the Grande Bretagne Hotel, a Rolls-Royce was parked. Across its bumper was a sticker: I'M VOTING FOR CARAMANLIS. Up above, every room in the hotel facing the square was filled with parties of wealthy Greeks waiting with champagne. The crowd, well over 200,000 this time, was older, dressed in furs and Paris fashions; the scents were not of garlic and grass but of Chanel and Givenchy. Many carried candles to light as they had done when Caraman lis returned to Greece last summer.

Dressed in an impeccably tailored blue blazer, striped shirt and blue-and-white tie -- the same outfit he had worn on his return to Athens-- Caramanlis appeared to a tumultuous welcome and a display of fireworks that was far and away the most colorful and expensive of the three rallies. He was the Eisen hower of the campaign, a father figure who, despite the fashionable crowd, appealed to Greeks from every walk of life.

Deftly but surely he reminded the crowd that in 1963, when Greeks had failed to give him their backing at the polls, he had gone into exile. He declared: "It will be a great disaster if history repeats it self today, now that fate begins to smile on us." He did not have to say any more.

The curtain came down on Syntagma Square with the Caramanlis loud speakers playing the freedom songs of Theodorakis. The pigeons went back, and the waiters put out the tables and chairs. The drama was over -- or perhaps it had just begun: Greece was again a democracy.

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