PM warns deputies over election pitfalls
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned his MPs that the first of what is almost certain to be a double general election next year will be a crucial one and that they should not treat it as a transition event, waiting for the “real one.”
According to the Constitution, an electoral system voted by Parliament can only be applied in the election after the next, unless a two-thirds majority decides otherwise. The clause was intended to prevent opportunistic moves by the outgoing government, but the previous SYRIZA government, already the underdog in the coming 2019 election, voted a simple proportional system that all but ensured that the incoming New Democracy could not win an outright majority in 2023.
Once in power, the ruling conservatives changed the electoral law again, with a premium of 30 seats given to the election winner. With a coalition government following the first election looking highly unlikely, a second election appears inevitable. Even then, a single-party majority is not a given.
Mitsotakis explained to his MPs that treating the first election as a sort of preliminary round risked demotivating the electoral and further boosting already high abstention levels, which could hurt his own party, which has led consistently in opinion polls. “The first poll is as important as the final one… it will show what kind of government [people] need,” he told his parliamentary group in a meeting commemorating the 48th anniversary of center-right New Democracy’s founding.
“The day after [the election] should find the country in a stable condition, without endless haggling” over forming a coalition, Mitsotakis said. “The country must be kept on a path of progress, without backsliding… If not us, who will manage the country’s challenges? Let our opponents explain what sort of policies they will follow… We are throwing the gauntlet. A strong state means a strong New Democracy,” he proclaimed.
His motto for the coming elections, he said, will be “stability, consistency, continuity,” a phrase he has repeated before.
The government’s term ends in July 2023.
