92% Yes

Premier George Papadopoulos has yearned for a public endorsement of his military-backed regime ever since the colonels seized power 17 months ago. Last week he won an endorsement --of sorts. In a nationwide referendum, 92% of the 4,600,000 voters who went to the polls approved the regime's carefully tailored new constitution. With its call for parliamentary democracy and the retention of monarchy, the constitution was ostensibly worth voting for. The catch is that its final clause reserves to the Premier and his former army colleagues the right to say when the constitution's provisions on liberty and elections will be put into force.

In a post-referendum speech, Papadopoulos made it plain he was in no hurry to surrender power. He reiterated the junta's favorite theme that the "goals of the revolution" must be carried out. By that, the former colonels mean that they want to purify Greek political life, immunizing the fiery-tempered Greeks against the vicious infighting that has marked their parliamentary history. Practically every Greek realizes that Papadopoulos & Co. have set themselves a next to impossible task, so there is no telling how many years the didactic colonels may persist in their mission.

Papadopoulos' attitude was a disappointment for some Greeks, who had voted NAI (yes) in the hope that the new constitution would be a first step toward a return to representational government. Many more Greeks, however, voted NAI mainly because they felt that it would be highly imprudent not to do so. In the countryside, where the junta's rule is especially entrenched, voters were handed only the NAI ballot by the election officials, and few voters dared ask for the OX1 (no) ballots, which were kept out of their reach. At some polling stations, strangers who had the look of plainclothesmen lounged around the ballot boxes. Under the circumstances, it was perhaps surprising that even 8% of the voters exercised the OXI option. The far safer way to vote against the regime was not to vote at all--a course taken by 1,500,000 Greeks, or some 22% of the registered electorate.

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