The Greek legislative election of the 19 February 1956 resulted in victory for Constantine Karamanlis and his National Radical Union party. It was the first general election in Greece in which women had the right to vote.

In 1955, Karamanlis was chosen by the King Paul I as successor of prime minister General Alexandros Papagos, who had just died. The decision was controversial, as Karamanlis was not a leading member of Papagos' party, and caused the vehement reactions of the party's two most prominent members, Stefanos Stefanopoulos and Panagiotis Kanellopoulos.

Nevertheless, Karamanlis, thanks to the support of the royal family and his own dextrous handlings, managed to establish himself as a strong leader. After stabilizing his leadership, he dissolved the Greek Rally party and created his own conservative right-wing party, the National Radical Union, which also comprised some prominent centrists (Evangelos Averoff, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Konstantinos Tsatsos) and went on to dominate the Greek political scene for the next 8 years.

The National Radical Union won thanks to a complex and controversial electoral system. In the rural constituencies the National Radical Union was expected to gain a plurality, while in the urban constituencies, the Liberal Democratic Union (Greece)|Liberal Democratic Union coalition party was expected to lead. As a result, the Liberal Democratic Union (Greece)|Liberal Democratic Union coalition party lost the election.

The Liberal Democratic Union included, among others:

• Centrists led by Georgios Papandreou,
• The Liberal Party, led by Sophoklis Venizelos and
• The left-wing EDA, led by Ioannis Passalidis.

A few years later, Georgios Papandreou and Sophoklis Venizelos renounced their alliance with EDA, thus breaking up the Liberal Democratic Union . rowspan=2 colspan=3 valign=top|Summary of the 19 February 1956 Greek Parliament election results !colspan="3" cellpadding="10" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Votes !colspan="2" style="background-color:#E9E9E9"|Seats |- style="background-color:#E9E9E9" !No. !%  !align="center"|+− % !align="center"|No. !align="center"|+− |- | ||National Radical Union |Constantine Karamanlis |align="right"|1,620,007 |align="right"|48.15 |align="center"| |align="center"|144 |align="center"| |- |  |Liberal Democratic Union | Georgios Papandreou
Sophoklis Venizelos
Ioannis Passalidis |align="right"|1,594,112 |align="right"|47.38 |align="center"| |align="center"|142 |align="center"| |- |  |Progressive Party |Spyros Markezinis |align="right"|74,545 |align="right"|2.22 |align="center"| |align="center"|7 |align="center"| |- |  |People's Social Party | |align="right"|29,375 |align="right"|0.88 |align="center"| |align="center"|3 |align="center"| |- |  |Party of Christian Democracy | |align="right"|449 |align="right"|0.01 |align="center"| |align="center"|- |align="center"| |- |  |Lists of Independents | |align="right"|31,022 |align="right"|0.92 |align="center"| |align="center"|3 |align="center"| |- |  |Others | |align="right"|14,851 |align="right"|0.44 |align="center"| |align="center"|1 |align="center"| |- |colspan="3"|Totals |align="right"| |align="right"|100.00 |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"|300 |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan="3"|Constituencies |align="right"| |align="right"|41 |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"|300 |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan="3"|Valid votes |align="right"|3,364,361 |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan="3"|Invalid votes |align="right"|15,084 |align="left"|(0.44%) |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan="3"|Total number of votes |align="right"|3,379,445 |align="left"|(74,79%) |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan="3"|Valid electorate |align="right"|4,507,907 |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan="3"|Population |align="right"|7,395,219 |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |align="center"| |align="center" bgcolor="white"|  |- |colspan=3|Source: Texts of Constitutional History, vol. 2, p. 835. |colspan=5| |}

Footnotes