Hellenic Institute for Strategic Studies-One omen is best, to fight for one's country Hellenic Institute for Strategic Studies-One omen is best, to fight for one's country
Hellenic Institute for Strategic Studies-One omen is best, to fight for one's country
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Blog

Meletis H. Meletopoulos: What does the constitution provide?

Meletis H. Meletopoulos: What does the constitution provide?

Super User
13 May 2018
Non-Member Views
0

verve231 via Getty Images

The paraphilia in the media and on social media regarding the possibility of early elections is based on a misinterpretation of constitutional provisions. Let us allow ourselves a parenthesis here: in our country, everyone is waiting to hear the opinions of constitutional experts instead of reading the country's very clear constitution, which needs neither interpretations nor the mediation of experts.

In a democracy, citizens must have their own opinion on the constitution and not cede (also) this crucial function to constitutional scholars, much more so when some of them abandon their scientific neutrality or even use their scientific status to become members of parliament and ministers of various parties.

So what does the constitution provide?If Prime Minister A. Tsipras decides to leave power for his own reasons and submits his resignation (something that is certainly not certain), the President of the Republic P. Pavlopoulos calls in turn the leaders of the parties (Tsipras, Mitsotakis, Koutsoubas, Gennimata, Leventis, etc.) and assigns them an exploratory mandate. That is, he gives them the right to negotiate with the other parties in Parliament, in order to determine whether they could form another government that would receive a vote of confidence.ς in the parliament.

As long as P. Pavlopoulos realizes that no one can form a viable government (something very likely with today's correlations), calls a meeting of political leadersThere it is clear that the president will make an effort to get the political leaders to agree on the formation of a universal government or a coalition government, especially if the spreads are rising rapidly or the stock market is collapsing or the country is once again on the verge of a fourth memorandum or a heated episode with Turkey. That is where the search will be made popular personalityor will Costas Karamanlis be recalled to active duty, perhaps the only person who has the trust of both SYRIZA and ND.

 
If these are not done, then the Parliament will be dissolved and elections will be held with Mr. Sakellariou or another senior official as acting Prime Minister. judicial. Because the election result will obviously not yield self-reliance, the scenario of an ecumenical or broad-based government will be put on the table again after the elections. A short-lived government, ecumenical or coalition, will therefore be formed, again with a prime minister of common acceptance.

Short-lived because the new government and the new parliament that will arise, either this summer or at the latest in the autumn of 2019, when the term of the present parliament ends, will have an expiration date of the election of a new president of the Republic in the spring of 2020.

In the second elections that will follow, the simple proportional representation system will apply, where each group will have a serious chance of being represented in parliament, especially if SYRIZA manages to abolish the 3% threshold. The political landscape will become more fluid. But the prospect of simple proportional representation will be a divisive factor for any government stability even now.

All of this means that those political analysts, politicians, party officials, supporters, etc. who imagine a normal alternation of the two "big" parties in power, and who expect their party's rise to power and its benefits, are still living in bipartisan past or project their desires. The same is happening with the recent attempt by some of the media to project the rechristened PASOK as an "alternative" solution to SYRIZA, so that the old familiar two-party system can be revived.

Because we live in a completely new era, which the various clientelistic parties of the past cannot express, no matter how many Ovidian transformations they make. Social stratification has changed violently, The middle class has been destroyed, youth is migrating en masse, the massive influx of immigrants is raising existential identity problems.

Finally, there are the unexpected: the country is experiencing immediate threat from the east, geopolitical data has become liquid, international geopolitical balances are being overturned. In this context, there are simply no linear developments.

,