Voting in Ano Poli
City
Migration Period
Category
Full Description
Since the arrival of the refugees, their vote had become a matter of considerable political dispute. The refugees, listed in separate electoral rolls, participated in the December 1923 election from which the People’s Party and its allies abstained. After this election, the refugees were integrated into the country’s electoral rolls. Overall, until and including the 1928 election, the refugee vote was overwhelmingly in favour of the Liberal Party and Eleftherios Venizelos. However, after 1930, when Venizelos signed the Greco-Turkish Agreement, which essentially undervalued their assets compared to those owned by the Muslims who left Greece during the population exchange, and a financial crisis arose leading the country to declare bankruptcy, a large proportion of refugee voters started distancing themselves from Venizelos’ political sphere. Right-wing parties, particularly the National Radical Party of Georgios Kondylis in the 1932 election, and local politicians, such as Sotirios Gotzamanis in Macedonia in the 1935 election, were both boosted by the disenchanted refugee vote. However, the party that benefitted the most from refugees’ growing alienation from Venizelos’ politics was the Greek Communist Party (KKE).
These are the first pages of the 1928 electoral rolls for the Ano Poli parishes and the list of voting districts for the same election. There were four parishes in Ano Poli: Profitis Ilias, Taxiarches, Zoodochos Pigi (Laodigitria) and Agia Aikaterini. Total voters were distributed across these parishes as follows: 3,643 for Profitis Ilias, 2,345 for Taxiarches, 1,624 for Zoodochos Pigi, and 1,630 for Agia Aikaterini. The voters registered at Profitis Ilias voted at the Thessaloniki School for Girls on Agias Sofias Street and the Taxiarches voters at the church of the same name and the 2nd School for Boys on the intersection of Athinas Street and Theotokopoulou Street (what today is the 45th Elementary School, also known as ‘the school of Manios’). The voters of the Zoodochos Pigi parish voted at the 2nd School for Boys and the voters of Agia Aikaterini at the school in Mevlehane. In the 1936 election, a new electoral district was established for the voters of Agioi Anargiroi in the Acropolis, who voted at the 9th Elementary School (today, the 49th Elementary School of Thessaloniki). The results of the interwar period elections for Ano Poli, the city of Thessaloniki and the whole country are presented below.[1] The percentage of the pro-Venizelos vote was very high in Ano Poli, with the area either leading in Venizelos voters in the city or coming second only to the suburban refugee settlements (Kalamaria, Toumba, Polichni, Stavroupoli, Evosmos, Ampelokipoi). The percentage of Ano Poli voters who voted for the Greek Communist Party is also particularly high.
Table 1. 1926 election
| 1926 Election |
Liberal Party |
Democratic Union
(Papanastasiou) |
Freethinkers’ Party
(Metaxas) |
People’s Party | United Electoral Front (Greek Communist Party) | Hebrew Political Union |
| Ano Poli[2] | 60,47% | 11,09% | 9,12% | 4,38% | 13,31% | – |
| Centre[3] | 41,88% | 7,88% | 27,03% | 5,65% | 6,25% | – |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | 38,48% | 8,85% | 33,08% | 5,65% | 6,15% | – |
| Western Thessaloniki[4] | 39,87% | 12,75% | 20,53% | 3,56% | 15,56% | – |
| Settlements (Toumba, Kalamaria, Polichni) [5] | 62,64% | 6,15% | 8,43% | 4,09% | 6,56% | – |
| City of Thessaloniki | 35,10% | 7,30% | 14,70% | 2,80% | 16,00% | 14,50% |
| Nationwide results | 31,63% | 6,48% | 15,76% | 20,27% | 4,38% | – |
Table 2. 1928 Election
| 1928 Election[6] | Liberal Party | People’s Party | United Front (Greek Communist party) |
| Ano Poli | 77,58% | 12,67% | 6,46% |
| Centre | 58,37% | 35,92% | 4,11% |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | 56,61% | 35,45% | 3,51% |
| Western Thessaloniki | 70,89% | 20,52% | 7,83% |
| Settlements | 93,31% | 4,07% | 1,62% |
| Nationwide results | 46,94% | 23,94% | 1,41% |
Table 3. 1932 Election
| 1932 Election[7] | Liberal Party | Progressive Party (Kafantaris-Zavitsianos) | Agricultural and Labour Party (former Democratic Union) | People’s Party | National Radical Party
(Kondylis) |
United Front (Greek Communist Party) |
| Ano Poli | 38,79% | 4,36% | 2,72% | 13,79% | 18,19% | 19,87% |
| Centre | 33,65% | 4,14% | 4,29% | 35,54% | 10,05% | 10,63% |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | 36,76% | 4,02% | 3,60% | 34,97% | 8,83% | 10,26% |
| Western Thessaloniki | 30,46% | 3,30% | 2,76% | 24,34% | 12,73% | 23,94% |
| Settlements | 38,67% | 3,95% | 2,76% | 12,12% | 22,66% | 13,63% |
| City of Thessaloniki | 35,73% | 4,01% | 3,73% | 24,68% | 14,30% | 15,38% |
| Nationwide results | 33,42% | 8,35% | 5,89% | 33,80% | 4,07% | 4,97% |
Table 4. March 1933 Election
| March 1933 Election[8] | Liberal Party (National Coalition) | People’s Party (United Opposition) | United Party (Greek Communist Party) |
| Ano Poli | 49,24% | 30,57% | 19,72% |
| Centre | 42,85% | 46,98% | 8,97% |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | 42,97% | 46,80% | 9,85% |
| Western Thessaloniki | 43,68% | 35,57% | 20,30% |
| Settlements | 52,76% | 31,01% | 13,40% |
| City of Thessaloniki | 45,92% | 38,70% | 14,37% |
| Nationwide results | 46,32% | 46,19% | 4,64% |
Table 5. 1933 Repeat Election (Thessaloniki)
| 1933 Repeat Election[9] | Liberal Party | People’s Party | United Front (Greek Communist Party) |
| Ano Poli | 69,20% | 24,68% | 6,02% |
| Centre | 36,14% | 60,38% | 3,42% |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | 39,66% | 58,30% | 2,03% |
| Western Thessaloniki | 43,19% | 49,24% | 6,33% |
| Settlements | 68,11% | 31,23% | 0,61% |
| City of Thessaloniki | 46,19% | 48,73% | 2,81% |
Table 6. 1935 Election
| 1935 Election [10] | Liberal Party (abstained) | People’s Party | Macedonian Union (Gotzamanis)[11] | Union of Royalists (Metaxas) | United Front (Greek Communist Party) | Abstained | Blank ballots |
| Ano Poli | – | 32,88% | 20,55% | 4,03% | 32,20% | 35,21% | 9,90% |
| Centre | – | 57,43% | 22,30% | 4,40% | 9,92% | 26,13% | 4,03% |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | – | 57,92% | 20,04% | 4,24% | 11,70% | 22,82% | 5,45% |
| Western Thessaloniki | – | 42,62% | 17,13% | 4,12% | 27% | 28,80% | 5,30% |
| Settlements | – | 36,99% | 12,95% | 2,90% | 33% | 26,25% | 10,93% |
| City of Thessaloniki | – | 47,88% | 18,70% | 3,84% | 20,70% | 26,80% | 7,35% |
| Nationwide results | – | 65,04% | 2,88% | 14,80% | 9,59% | – | – |
Table 7. 1936 Election
| 1936 Election[12] | Liberal Party | Democratic Coalition | People’s Party | General Popular Radical Union | National Reform Party (Gotzamanis)[13] | All People Front (Greek Communist Party) |
| Ano Poli | 56,60% | 2,94% | 9,32% | 8,38% | 3,03% | 16,30% |
| Centre | 35,55% | 3,25% | 23,27% | 21,27% | 6,45% | 9,56% |
| Eastern Thessaloniki | 30,93% | 1,92% | 23,12% | 24,37% | 6,27% | 9,13% |
| Western Thessaloniki | 39,03% | 1,70% | 13,95% | 17,50% | 4,56% | 17,70% |
| Settlements | 56,28% | 3,38% | 10,25% | 7,31% | 2,50% | 17% |
| City of Thessaloniki | 42,70% | 2,72% | 16,70% | 16,20% | 4,68% | 13,50% |
| Nationwide results | 37,26% | 4,21% | 22,10% | 19,89% | 1,40% | 5,76% |
[1] These are derived from the data provided by Ioannis Karatzoglou, Electoral geography and ethno-social changes in Thessaloniki, 1915-2019, prefaced by Evangelos Venizelos, Epikentro, Thessaloniki 2019, pp. 45-69. It is important to note that results by voting district were not always available through the Hellenic Statistical Authority and the writer often had to resort to gleaning data from the press of the time.
[2] Results for 11 out of 13 voting districts.
[3] Results for 12 out of 14 voting districts.
[4] Results for 7 out of 8 voting districts.
[5] Results for 5 out of 8 voting districts, there is no data for the Agia Marina Toumba, Harmankioi and Lenbet voting districts.
[6] Results for 46 out of 72 voting districts.
[7] Results for all voting districts.
[8] For all voting districts.
[9] Results for all voting districts.
[10] Results for 68 out of 70 voting districts.
[11] Participated in Thessaloniki, Pella and Kilkis.
[12] Results for all voting districts.
[13] Participated in Pella, Thessaloniki, Kilkis, Florina and Chalkidiki.
Bibliography
Ioannis Karatzoglou, Electoral geography and ethno-social changes in Thessaloniki, 1915-2019, prefaced by Evangelos Venizelos, Epikentro, Thessaloniki 2019.
Dimosthenis Dodos, ‘The refugee vote: From Venizelos to Kondylis’, in Eleni Ioannidou (ed.), The Transformation of Thessaloniki. Refugee settlement in the city (1920-1940), seminar proceedings May 17, 2008, Historical Archive of Refugee Hellenism, ‘Friends of ASKI’ Society, Epikentro, Thessaloniki 2010, pp. 161-178.