“The election of 2023 was rigged”.
This is how, in a phrase that would be the envy of the most imaginative coffee shop, SYRIZAKostas Arvanitis MEP decided to explain the electoral phenomenon called SYRIBE. And since numbers have a bad habit of not obeying the imagination, it’s worth looking at what exactly was… “tweaked.”
Because we’re not dealing with a simple defeat here. We have before us a result that is not whispered but enforced. In June 2023, New Democracy recorded 40.56% and Syriazas was limited to 17.83%. The difference reached 22.73 points. A gap that is not covered by theories, nor picked up by innuendo.
And if anyone thinks this is a momentary “disagreement“, there was a rehearsal. In May, the same picture. The New Democracy got 40.79% and near self-reliance in a simple proportional representation system, and Syriza got 20.07%.
Difference of more than 20 points. Two election contests, two identical messages. If this is “interference”, then it is the most consistent interference in the country’s political history. On a footnote, turnout climbed from 38.90% in May to 47.17%; almost one in two didn’t go to the polls. Not because they “suspected” anything, but because they already knew what was going to happen. The May ballot had spoken so clearly that the second election felt more like a confirmation than a showdown. If this is a sign of “interference”, then this is the first case in history where “rigging” is accompanied by… indifference.
The comparison with the past is revealing. In 2000 everything was judged on the line. In 2015 the difference was 7.47 points. In 1981, the so-called sweeping victory of PASOK’s Change was stopped at 12 points. And yet, in 2023 the gap almost doubles. Not because the first party soared, but because the second party collapsed.
There is, of course, 1974. There the gap reached 33.95 points. Constantine Karamanlis’ New Democracy got 54.37% against 20.42% for Unity Centre – New Forces of Georgios Mavros. It was a society emerging from dictatorship. An outcome explained by the circumstances of the time.
The 2023 had no such alibi. He had only a clear political choice. And that was reflected without blurring.
The picture is not limited to the percentages. The New Democracy prevailed everywhere. In all age groups. In all professional fields. In the periphery and in major urban centers. From Crete to Western Macedonia. From the Ionian to the Dodecanese. The electoral map did not change colour by accident. It changed overall. All of Greece became Blue.
Somewhere here, the theory of “pirated elections” takes on an almost artistic dimension. It presupposes an invisible force that simultaneously affects everything and everyone. A force that manages to leave the same imprint on every ballot box, on every social group, in every corner of the country.
And in the end, a simple question remains. Is the election “rigged” or was something else rigged? Because when reality is so clear and its interpretation so desperately skewed, the problem is not the results. It lies with those who are unable to read them. And there, the “tampered with” are not the election results. It’s the minds.
