Venizelos: Coalition with ND Only if We Get Together 50%

PASOK Leader Evangelos Venizelos set the lines about a coalition government after the parliamentary elections of May sixth. “Government cooperation will be possible only if we get together with [conservative] Nea Dimocratia more than 50%. I think that 50% of the citizens [votes] is the basic majority.” Speaking to news portal NewsIt.gr  and referring to public opinion polls, Venizelos stressed that “The people do not want a one-party solution. Important is the command of the people. We cannot have an artificial majority.”

Venizelos did not rule out the possibility of horizontal cuts in wages and pensions, but added that if everything goes as planned, this won’t be necessary.  We do not need to have new taxes, to have low-incomers and low-pensioners be affected again.”

In a televised address where he presented PASOK’s platform on governance, Venizelos proposed also an overall revision of the Constitution. According to Athens News Agency, Venizelos said that Greece needs a major “national and social pact for a ‘New State’, a democracy of consensus, because nothing is achieved with marginal majorities.

He also proposed changes to the election procedure for the President of the Republic, noting that “if parliament fails to elect a President with a three-fifths majority (180 votes in the 300-member parliament), then recourse should be taken in the electoral body, while he also suggested that the President be given new regulatory authorities.”