Greece to lower voting age, change electoral system

By Vasiliki Mitsiniotou

ATHENS

A bid to lower the Greek voting age and reform the electoral system has been passed by MPs but will have to wait before taking effect.

Greek lawmakers voted late on Thursday night on lowering the voting age by a year to 17, but the government was unable to win the necessary backing of 200 MPs to immediately change the country's voting system.

Despite successive meetings with opposition parties, the SYRIZA-led government coalition failed to persuade them to back the proportional representation measure, meaning only 179 MPs voted in favor.

A decision by the ultra-right Golden Dawn party to abstain from the vote also ensured the measure failed to garner enough support.

Under the present system, the party with the most votes gets a bonus of 50 seats in a national election.

The Greek coalition government introduced a draft bill which would scrap the 50-seat bonus in the 300-seat parliament. This way, parliament would reflect the share of all votes among parties that get more than three percent in a general election.

The scrapping of the 50-seat bonus has been advocated by left-wing parties – including SYRIZA – for many years, who claim the current system distorts the popular will. However, opposition parties slammed the reform, claiming it would lead to political instability.

Speaking during the debate, leader of the opposition New Democracy party, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: "You [the government] are heading towards a heavy defeat and you want to cook an electoral law to block New Democracy’s way to form a government."

Mitsotakis told Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras: "We want a system that ensures governability.”

Tsipras told MPs the electoral reforms were “the first step in the democratization of the political scene”.

“Parties of 40 percent [votes] do not exist today… From a barren two-party system of the past, we can move on to a fertile bipolarity with coalition governments," Tsipras said.

He accused Mitsotakis of identifying direct democracy with populism and of being scared of the people.

Given the small number of MPs in favor, any amendments on proportional representation will only be effective after a future general election.