Was a failed large-scale rebel plot the political reason behind establishing the Quarter Quells?

Since the idea that the Quarter Quells were written into the rule set for the Hunger Games from the beginning is obviously Capitol lies, then something quite dramatic must have happened to even get the Gamemakers to feel the necessity to introduce the idea for the 25th games.

During the first Quarter Quell the district’s people would vote for the two Tributes who would represent them in that year’s Hunger Games. This strikes me as a pretty risky move from the Capitol, because why would they actually allow that? What message does that send to the districts? “Maybe you can actually control your own future and protect your kids from the Hunger Games … but just this once!” Why would the Capitol host a proper democratic process? We are never given an example of this happening beyond this one instance, so I think the idea that the Capitol actually held fair elections for these Games is another lie from the propaganda-machine. Similar to the information presented by the Capitol in Catching Fire about the second Quarter Quell, the reader believes it without really questioning it since they aren’t asked to question it, but we later learned in Sunrise on the Reaping how distorted the Capitol’s version actually was. If they can fool us once then why not again?

There is a common theory that the 25th games was potentially the origin point for the later very institutionalized Career system in 1, 2 and 4. This is because in theory the districts could vote strategically for a strong and smart Tribute to increase their survival chance during the games. I think it’s very possible that this did happen but I don’t believe this was the most important legacy from these games.

We should keep in mind that Panem is an extremely suppressive authoritarian regime. In our world these states are not exactly know for holding fair elections, however they often do still hold elections even though the people in power don’t need them to maintain the status quo. These elections usually serve the purpose of stabilizing and legitimizing their rule. They will never be able to convince a desperate and angry individual who is heavily suppressed and starving of supporting the people who put them in that situation, but they can convince them that they are alone in their anger. I think the Capitol was doing something similar here.

But if the election was not legitimate then the next question is why? We know that the Capitol routinely rig the Reaping, and may use this to punish rebellious individuals and families. They would not need to host a fake election process if they wanted to target a few individuals, however if it works as intended then it instead targets the community in the districts. It would plant distrust between the social classes, and maybe between the different districts as well.

1. You would have rich parents who would probably whatever the price to get people to vote strategically to direct the Games away from their own kids. This obviously favors the richer social classes.
2. You would have the popular parents with large networks who would agree to not vote for each other’s kids. This likely favors the poorer social classes, since the poor people outnumber the rich people.
3. If some districts organize themselves and vote for Career-like Tributes, then this would also plant distrust between the districts themselves because not every district will have the means to chose that path to save their kids.

So why was it particularly important to divide and conquer that year? Well I believe that there was a larger rebel plot that triggered the first Quarter Quell. If a group of people managed to organize a rebellious movement that grew large enough to the point were the Capitol may have been unable to hide it. Maybe it was organized enough to span multiple districts, and maybe even the Capitol citizens were aware of it to some degree, then the Capitol would need to take dramatic action. Divide and conquer is exactly what they would need.

To get this to work as planned they won’t even need to let a majority organically form for two Tributes within a district. All they would need to do is plant enough rumors within the population pointing to who people are going to vote for and why, and then later during the Reaping let those children be the ones who were Reaped. After the Reaping they could plant the rumors among the outer-districts like 10, 11 and 12 about why districts like 1, 2 and 4 had particularly strong Tributes that year to also isolate the districts from each other.

Obviously the candidates who were “legitimately elected” would be from families who were well known to be involved in the rebel activities. This would hammer down the idea to any rebellious individual that a majority of their community disapproved so heavily of their actions, that they were willing to send their child to the Hunger Games. This would be a particularly strong message if the child was coincidentally around 12 years old compared to the 17 year olds who were Reaped as Careers + if the Capitol citizens were at least partially aware of the plot, then this would work well for propaganda designed for them too. “Look even the people of the districts don’t approve of rebellious actions against the Capitol, they willingly send rebel children to the games”

Has anyone else been thinking about this?