By Antonis Anzoletou

The simple proportional system with which the elections will be held on May 21 is to be applied from the repeated triple elections of the period 1989 – 1990. It was the time when Konstantinos Mitsotakis with percentages of 44.28%, 46.19% and 46.89% had collected only 145, 148 and 150 MPs respectively. It is a utopia to form a self-reliant government 53 days from today and no one doubts that. When SYRIZA voted to change the electoral system, it had spoken about the need for governmental cooperation. Simple analogy has always been part of the ideology and DNA of the Left and it would be an inconsistency if Alexis Tsipras did not proceed with this move. Almost the rest of the political system talks about an electoral law that leads mathematically to anarchy. In July 2016, which was voted on Parliament the simple proportional one with 176 “yes”, 86 “no” and 19 “present”, PASOK had not supported the initiative of the then government. A “war” had begun at the time, with SYRIZA MPs surprised that a progressive force had turned its back on a law that distributes the vote equally by abolishing the bonus of seats in the first party.

As the landscape was formed about seven years ago, the new seat distribution system got the green light from the Parliament to take effect from the following elections, as it was not voted with the increased majority of 2/3 (200 MPs). This is why the 2019 elections were held with the “subsidy” of 50 seats.

Who is the lever for self-reliance in the upcoming elections? Calculating non-parliamentary parties around 8% (as in 2019) the percentage of the “first” must reach 46.2%. Even if the forces that do not complete 3% – which gives them the ticket for the Parliament – reach 10%, the “winner” must collect 45.2%. Unrealistic scenarios for the existing political balances, which refer to percentages of past decades. For New Democracy, the simple analogy is an “exercise of self-reliance” in order to go as strong as possible in the second ballots. For SYRIZA, victory, even with a one-vote difference, automatically means the achievement of an allied government with PASOK and possibly with MeRA25. Of course, they calculate without the “hotelier” because Nikos Androulakis, speaking in the SKAI news bulletin, repeated his different perspective on things. For Harilaou Trikoupi, simple proportionality must definitely give an allied government, setting as its goal a high percentage that will designate it as a regulator of developments.

The enhanced analog

The next election, if necessary, will be held under the electoral system voted for in January 2020. The first party that receives more than or equal to 25% of the valid ballots gets a bonus of 20 seats, while the remaining 280 are distributed proportionally between entitled seats of the parties. From 25%, for every 0.5%, the first party gets an additional bonus one seat. He receives the maximum of 50 seats if his percentage is at 40%. What does this mean practically? With the “scalable bonus” and a percentage outside Parliament that will move to around 10%, self-reliance can be achieved if the first party reaches 37.5%.

The polling decline presented by New Democracy after the Tempe disaster “inflamed” the scenarios, mainly from the opposition, for “burning” the scenarios about self-reliance. Kyriakos Mitsotakis insists, as he sees that only further mobilization can succeed in the second ballots. And at the same time, the “blue faction” with its own electoral law is a fact that will significantly increase the number of its MPs due to the reinstatement of the bonus. The dilemmas that the parties will raise may be different, but to a large extent on May 21st, the “governance model” will also be decided. Self-reliance with the goal of stability favored by New Democracy or cooperative schemes with programmatic convergences desired by SYRIZA.