Gov’t considers Referendum on Constitutional Reform & new election law

Greek government is considering to have the Greeks vote for the upcoming constitutional reforms and the new elections law. Spokeswoman Olga Gerovasili told reporters today that the government intends to have a broad dialogue with political parties and the society on “these radical changes needed in our political system.”

Asked if there were thoughts in the government to put the proposals for the Constitution Revision or even the new electoral law on a referendum, Gerovasili replied that such an option “has not been discussed or agreed upon, however it is not impossible.”

The government plans to bring the its proposals for the Constitutional Revision on public debate on July 24th and expects that the debate ends after one year.

There has been some scenario in the media of government thoughts to have the President elected directly by the people and not by the Parliament. But this would require enhanced duties for the President. It has been a common tradition in Greece that the opposition enforces early elections by not voting in favor the the Presidential candidates proposed by the government. Gerovasili said that the issue about the President election was “much to early.”

Given the results of the Referendum 2015 and the government actions that followed these results, now there are some kind of jokes going around and claiming that in order

for the government to get YES to its proposals it will have to convince the last year’s NO front to vote YES while last year’s YES front most likely will vote NO or YES if the Constitution says “We stay in Europe” but then last years’ YES front will vote NO and at the end the government may need to bring to Referendum the opposite proposals of what it really intends to to.

but you know, the notorious mean Greeks are nuts anyway.