The Second Hellenic Republic was to be short-lived. At the beginning of the 1930s, and more specifically after the fall of Eleftherios Venizelos in 1932, the voices speaking for the restoration of the monarchy grew more and more. The rise of the Tsaldaris government in 1933 actually paved the way. Two years later, with the polarization being particularly intense, a more immediate solution would be offered on the part of the royalists, with Georgios Kondylis as the protagonist. The movement of 10her October 1935 was organized and executed by pro-royal high officers under the leadership of Kondylis, with the aim of overthrowing the legally elected government of Panagis Tsaldaris, which – according to the activists – was not able to carry out the management of the issue of the restoration of the king . With Kondylis’ movement, in fact, the process of restoring the monarchy would now enter its final phase.
More specifically, after the overthrow of the Tsaldari government, a new one was formed with Kondylis as prime minister, which was presented at the opening session of the Parliament after the summer holidays and was sworn in. Tsaldaris, along with the 165 MPs from his party, walked out of the meeting in protest. The 82 deputies present approved a Resolution of the new government, according to which the Parliamentary Republic was abolished, and the Constitution of 1911 was temporarily reinstated.
A referendum would be held on November 3, 1935 to finally resolve the state question. The people were asked to approve or reject the change of state, with the Reigning Republic ballots in blue and the Queen’s ballots in red. Despite the fact that in a period where power was held by an illegitimately elected government, it was considered unlikely that a result would come out that would vote against the Reigning Republic. In addition, the fear of a small majority continued to exist; something, which would not contribute to the consolidation of the monarchy, which was also the demand for those in power. For this reason specific measures had been taken. Martial law had been imposed in the run-up to the referendum, which was lifted just a week before the polls. At the same time, there was censorship, which prohibited the publication of opinions in favor of the Queen, and a few days before it was held, Alexandros Papanastasiou and George Papandreou were deported to Mykonos.
Characteristic of the whole climate is the front page of “Kathimerini” on November 4, according to which “yesterday’s sanctioning referendum returned the Royal Government to Greece. The Greek people voted all over the country with unbridled enthusiasm.” We read further down in the same article that “two things characterized yesterday’s referendum confirming the decision of the National Assembly: the great influx of people to the polls and the exemplary order, which prevailed in all sections from the beginning to the end of the voting. […] Most voted openly. A few went to the special partition to secretly place the ballot that represented their opinions in the sealed envelope. Very few accepted to take the red ballot of the princess. Most of them passed the blue of the reigning woman, threw it into the envelope and waited in silence until their name was written in the list kept and they were given permission to throw the envelope to the voter”.
This particular referendum, whose official result in favor of the Reigning Republic amounted to approximately 98% of all votes, went down in history as “illegitimate”.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigone-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
