Using the Constitution to Control Institutions - What Tasoulas’ Election Reveals About Greek Politics

11:16 13/2/2025 - Πηγή: Dikaiologitika

The justification sounded reasonable: Requiring 180 votes to elect the President of the Republic supposedly allowed the opposition to pressure the government into calling early elections.

The solution? Lower the threshold so the President could be elected by a simple or even relative majority.

Since 2019, Greece’s ruling

party, New Democracy, has leveraged its dominance-backed by a supportive media landscape and defectors from the center-left PASOK—to amend the Constitution. As a result, the country’s highest political office can now be filled with just 151 votes in the fourth round of parliamentary voting—or, if necessary, by a mere relative majority in a fifth round.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wasted no time in showing what he intended with this new system. In the first presidential election under the revised rules, he selected a New Democracy loyalist from the party’s right-wing faction—an appointment designed to avoid internal dissent within his own parliamentary group.

In doing so, Mitsotakis institutionalized a system that effectively allows the ruling party to control not only Parliament but also the Presidency. Thanks to Greece’s electoral law, which grants a bonus to the winning party, the government can now secure the Head of State along with its legislative majority. This move is part of a broader pattern of consolidating control over institutions, including key independent regulatory bodies.

The election of Konstantinos Tasoulas exemplifies how the constitutional reform has been weaponized for political gain—an unprecedented manipulation of Greece’s foundational legal framework. And the trend is continuing. To appease the current President, who was denied a second term, the government is now proposing a single six-year presidential term, further reshaping the system to fit its political agenda.

Meanwhile, Tasoulas finds himself in an uncomfortable position. Whether he will truly act as a nonpartisan President remains to be seen—but few in Greece believe he will even try.

#ENGLISH_EDITION #GREEK_POLITICS