«Το μάνλιχερ και την λόγχην αντικαθιστά το ψηφοδέλτιον και η πέννα»: Η ψήφος του στρατού στις εκλογές του 1920

Abstract

The subject of this article is the elections that were conducted at the front of Asia Minor and Thrace on the 1st of November 1920. The law of the Venizelos government, on the basis of which officers and soldiers who were stationed at the fronts of Thrace and Asia Minor could exercise their electoral right on the spot, provoked intense reactions. The lack of guarantees for the integrity of the vote, as well as the transfer of responsibility for their conduct to the military leadership, had created, as is argued, the conditions for the distortion of the result. With the tacit consent of the government, the excesses of the military leadership even before the conduct of the elections aimed at the further control and manipulation of the soldiers’ vote. The voting process itself, as emerges, was tainted, while the extent of the fraud was such that the competent committees refused to certify the authenticity of the elections. The decisions of the Electoral Court, on the basis of which the elections of the Front were annulled, resulted in 100,000 votes not being counted in the final result. Finally, the law that had given the possibility to the army to exercise its electoral right outside the national territory had already annulled itself during its very implementation.