Kostas Simitis, two-time Prime Minister of Greece, dies at the age of 88

In his first term, Mr. Simitis set about reducing wasteful public and private spending in Greece, and sought to prepare the economy to meet the European Union’s goals for his country’s accession to the eurozone. He succeeded in reducing inflation and public indebtedness while stabilizing the drachma currency.

His cautious style was in marked contrast to the Papandreou years.

Dimitris Rapas, a government spokesman, said: “We needed someone who would say less and do more, an ordinary Greek person, who does not come from above, who does not hide his problems with endless myths.” The New York Times in 1996.

Simitis won a second term in 2000, but with a narrow majority and far less than the support he sought against his main rival, Kostas Karamanlis, leader of the New Democracy party. It was also under Mr. Simitis that Greece finally held itself accountable for the horrific November 17 Urban Terrorist Movement that emerged from the popular struggle against the US-backed military officers who seized power in 1967.

In 2002, one of the wounded suicide bombers began speaking out, and as a result, the police made a series of arrests, convincing the authorities to say that most members of the organization had been arrested. Theodor Koulombes, a political analyst, said at the time that the country had witnessed a “radical change.”

“We have crossed the threshold from an unstable democracy to a solid democracy,” he said.

But two years later, Simitis resigned as head of PASOK and said he would not compete in the upcoming elections, in which his party lost to New Democracy. He was succeeded as head of the PASOK party by George Papandreou, the son of Andreas Papandreou, who was at the time Greece’s foreign minister.