Greek plebiscite, 1935
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Greece |
 This article is part of the series: |
|
|
|
|
Other countries · Atlas Politics Portal |
The Greek plebiscite of 1935 was held to decide whether the monarchy should be restored.
In 1935, prime minister Georgios Kondylis, a former pro-Venizelos military officer, became the most powerful political figure in Greece. He compelled Panagis Tsaldaris to resign as prime minister and took over the government, suspending many constitutional provisions in the process. Kondylis, who had now joined the Conservatives, decided to held a referendum in order to re-establish the monarchy, despite the fact that he used to be a supporter of the anti-monarchist wing of Greek politics.
The result of the plebiscite constituted a triumph for Kondylis and George II, who returned from exile. He was restored to the throne on November 30, 1935.
Contemporary historians express serious doubts about the legality of the plebiscite, pointing out the fact that according to the results the share of the party of Eleftherios Venizelos seems to have shrunk to just two percent. Another anomaly was that while approximately 1 and 1.3 million voters took part in the legislative elections of 1935 and 1936 respectively, the reported turnout at the 1935 referendum was officially more than 1.5 million.
A peculiar outcome of the plebiscite was the sidelining of Kondylis, who lost almost all his political influence and was forced to quit politics, as George II entrusted other politicians with running the country.
| Summary of the 11 November 1935 Greek Plebiscite | Votes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | % | |||||
| Yes (Νai) | 1,491,992 | 97.87 | ||||
| No (Οxi) | 32,454 | 2.13 | ||||
| No. of valid votes | 1,524,446 | |||||
| Invalid votes | 3,268 | 0.21% | ||||
| Total number of voters | 1,527,714 | |||||
| Source: Texts of Constitutional History (Antonis Pantelis, Stefanos Koutsoumpinas, Triantafyllos Gerozisis), Second Volume (1924-1974) | ||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
