May 14, 1958
UNITED DEMOCRATIC LEFT: Following Sunday’s election that was won by Constantine Karamanlis’s National Radical Union (ERE) party, in which the United Democratic Left (EDA) received an increased share of the vote, the liberals – who had attempted to contain the left by legitimizing EDA – made an effort to justify their own failure by maintaining that the provisions of the electoral law and the policies of the Karamanlis government had in fact been to blame for EDA’s increased support. That claim has however proved to be quite unfounded, since reliable sources in ERE said that their party had actually maintained its electoral strength and that they had certainly not lost votes to EDA. On the contrary, the same sources say, it had been supporters of the Liberals and other parties who had switched their allegiance to EDA. In the 1956 elections, ERE had received 48.15 percent of the vote. ERE does not believe that it received fewer votes this time, because the total count did not include the votes cast in its favor by the military in 1956. It should be noted that the military did not vote in yesterday’s parliamentary election.
