The electoral law issues bring to mind a joke that has been around for decades, where the protagonist quipped that “when business is not doing so well, we change the ‘product’ and not the chairs”.
The electoral law reform is a game where everyone participates for their own interests, obviously. In fact, the electoral law seems to have gone through the most revisions, even surpassing the education reforms. (Every Minister of Education has announced radical reforms, even when their predecessor is from the same party, as in the case with the current Minister, Mr. Filis).
The election system has always been the battle ground for the political parties. And it turns out that they were correct to pressure for the election system of their preference. In many cases, the electoral law that was implemented gave the majority in parliament to the party that did not come first. In another case, a party could not form a government despite having received 49% of the vote.
These days the larger parties seem to want proportional representation. It is, however, obvious that they say one thing, mean another and make different deals under the table. It is clear that the governing party is flirting the the proportional representation systems similar to those that Akis Tsohatzopoulos came up with in 1989, who prides himself of managing to block Mitsotakis from forming a government in 1989 – however the infamous “Dirty ’89” came soon after.
It is obvious that it will be difficult to conclude the talks on the new electoral law within the deadlines set out by the Constitutions and relevant legislation. Simply put, Mr. Tsipras cannot yet be judged as a Prime Minister; merely as a tactician…
Stavros P. Psycharis
Originally published in the Sunday print edition
