2023-06-25 07:11:37
MADRID, 25 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The polls have opened at 7:00 a.m. (6:00 a.m. in Peninsular Spain) in a reissue of the failed May elections in which the bonus system for the most voted list will be recovered, a tool with which New Democracy aspires to overcome the threshold of absolute majority and thus revalidate the current government.
On May 21, New Democracy already won a solid victory, with more than 40 percent of the vote. However, at the meeting at that time, the electoral system approved during the SYRIZA Executive was applied, which established a pure proportional distribution system, which already anticipated a repetition of the elections if, as finally happened, the different formations did not agree to a coalition.
In this second appointment, a new system is applied, already promoted by the current Government, of New Democracy. According to this new regulation, the party with the most votes will obtain a bonus that will oscillate between 20 and 50 seats –depending on the percentage of votes obtained–, in such a way that only the remaining seats are distributed proportionally until completing the 300 that make up the Council of the Hellenes.
The prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, aspires to consolidate a “safe majority”, which would place several deputies above the threshold of 150, although for this, not only the votes accumulated by New Democracy will be key — the polls anticipate a similar result to the one registered in May– but also how many parties achieve parliamentary representation this Sunday.
For this second appointment, eyes are once again on the undecided, who are around 8 percent, and on the level of participation, after it was close to 61 percent in May, although the main factor of imbalance It may be in the number of parties that manage to enter Parliament.
In May, five formations exceeded the threshold of 3 percent, but the polls now predict that the number may even increase to eight, which will not only fragment the composition of Parliament but will force the same pie to be distributed among more parties. The main opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, has also warned of the risks that this possible scenario would entail, with the aim of trying to concentrate the vote.
The leader of SYRIZA has insisted in recent months on working so that Greece does not have an “all-powerful” New Democracy cabinet at the controls, a “regime that is not accountable”, as he went on to say on Sunday in a televised interview. Officially, Tsipras has been at pains to insist that he is not throwing in the towel, although in the May election his vote share fell more than ten points from the 2019 election.
“There is nothing definitive until the citizens have decided with their votes,” he pointed out, betting on a surprise that, in the best of cases, would imply for SYRIZA leading a progressive coalition together with the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), the third in the last elections and once a reference party in the sphere of the political left in Greece.
PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis, whom Mitsotakis has come to describe as “a Tsipras with a tie”, has ruled out any possible coalition with New Democracy and equally fears an “omnipotent” Executive, as he anticipates that it would mean “abuse of power”. in the next legislature. Already in the previous one, one of the main controversies in which the Government was involved was a spying scandal on political leaders and journalists, including Androulakis.
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