Parliamentary elections were held in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

on 29 October 1961 to elect members of the

Hellenic Parliament The Parliament of the Hellenes (), commonly known as the Hellenic Parliament (), is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Greece, located in the Old Royal Palace, overlooking Syntagma Square in Athens. The parliament is the supreme demo ...

Dieter Nohlen Dieter Nohlen (born 6 November 1939) is a German academic and political scientist. He currently holds the position of Emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. An ex ...

& Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p830 The result was a third consecutive victory for

Konstantinos Karamanlis Konstantinos G. Karamanlis (, ; 8 March 1907 – 23 April 1998) was a Greek statesman who was the four-time Prime Minister of Greece and two-term president of the Third Hellenic Republic. A towering figure of Greek politics, his political caree ...

and his

National Radical Union The National Radical Union ( (ΕΡΕ), (ERE)) was a Greek political party formed in 1956 by Konstantinos Karamanlis, mostly out of the Greek Rally party. History ERE was a conservative, right-wing party, which also had some prominent centris ...

(ERE), which won 176 of the 300 seats.

Results

Aftermath

The elections were quickly denounced by both main opposition parties, the leftist

United Democratic Left The United Democratic Left (, ΕΔΑ; ''Eniéa Dimokratikí Aristerá'', EDA) was a left-wing political party in Greece, active mostly before the Greek junta of 1967–1974. Foundation The party was founded in July 1951 by prominent center-left ...

(campaigning as part of the All-Democratic Agricultural Front) and the

Centre Union The Centre Union () was a major centrist political party in Greece, created in 1961 by Georgios Papandreou.Clogg, 1987, pp. 39–40 History The Centre Union was a political party in Greece in the 1960s which held office from 1963 to 1965 and wa ...

. They refused to recognise the result because of the numerous cases of

voter intimidation Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share o ...

and irregularities, such as sudden massive increases in support for ERE against historical patterns and the voting by deceased persons. The Centre Union alleged that the election result had been staged by the agents of the shadowy

deep state Deep state is a term used for (real or imagined) potential, unauthorized and often secret networks of power operating independently of a State (polity), state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agendas and goals. Although the term ori ...

(παρακράτος), including the army leadership, the Greek Central Intelligence Service and the notoriously right-wing

National Guard Defence Battalions The National Guard Defence Battalions or TEA () were a paramilitary battalions unit organization active in Greece (especially Northern Greece) between 1948 and 1982, under the control of the Defence Ministry. It was tasked with counterinsurgency, in ...

, according to a prepared emergency plan codenamed ''Pericles'' (Σχέδιο «Περικλής»). Although irregularities certainly occurred, the existence of ''Pericles'' was never proven, and it is uncertain that the interference in the elections had radically influenced the outcome. Nevertheless, Centre Union leader

George Papandreou George Andreas Papandreou (, , shortened to ''Giorgos'' () to distinguish him from his grandfather; born 16 June 1952) is an American-born Greek politician who served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2009 to 2011. He is currently serving as a ...

initiated an "unrelenting struggle" ("ανένδοτος αγών") until new and fair elections were held. Thus, the 1961 elections became known in the Greek political history as the "elections of violence and fraud" (εκλογές της βίας και νοθείας).

References

Sources

* {{Greek elections Parliamentary elections in Greece

Parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

1960s in Greek politics

Konstantinos Karamanlis