Main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for a law allowing Greeks abroad to vote and for the division of Greece’s largest electoral district – Athens’ huge second district – in a few smaller districts in an exclusive interview with To Vima on Sunday.
The proposal for a diaspora vote in general elections would allow those who are already registered in any of Greece’s electoral districts to vote for candidates on a single state-wide ticket, and they would vote at Greek embassies and consulates internationally.
Indeed, he called on Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to support the proposal so that it can be passed with a two-thirds parliamentary majority (200 MPs), and so that it can be enforced in the next general election. “If he dares, let him come to parliament so that we can pass it together,” Mitsotakis said.
The proposal would allow the 500,000 Greeks who left the country during the crisis and thousands of others to have a say in the country’s future, and diaspora Greeks could possibly be candidates on the state-wide ticket.
Mitsotakis says that Tsipras has undermined the necessary consensus for the handling of crucial economic and foreign policy issues and accuses the PM of irresponsible scandal-mongering, without tackling institutional corruption head on. “What he [Tsipras] is doing in waging war [on ND],” he said, noting SYRIZA’s personal, “vulgar” attacks with slander even for the relatives of politicians.
In addition, the main opposition leader says that his party will actively court centrist voters, who he believes do not have an ideological kinship with SYRIZA.
In fact, Mitsotakis underlined that SYRIZA is no way a true social democratic party and that it has chosen the path of untrammeled pledges of hand-outs that can derail the economy and bring the country to the brink of disaster once again.
Mitsotakis also lambastes the government for not revealing its growth plan, and charges that it has been submitted to the EU, which he says will draft the final plan.
