Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised to give expatriate Greeks the right to vote, speaking during a mostly anti-climatic debate in Parliament on Friday evening regarding the Novartis case.
“We will give the right to vote to overseas Greeks, where the (previous) New Democracy government sent our young people,” Tsipras said in a surprising move.
Greece’s leftist political world and even the most social democrat-leaning parties have in the past been loath to grant voting rights to Greek citizens living abroad but who are still registered on election rolls in the country. The process would entail the setting up ballot boxes in Greece’s diplomatic missions, election committees’ oversight etc. Although not uttered publicly, most left-of-center politicians in the country believe they would lose election strength by counting votes cast by Greek citizens living abroad.
Back in Parliament, Tsipras responded to main opposition New Democracy’s proposal to extend the right to vote to Greek living abroad – in the place of residence – by saying that “the children of brain drain have the right to vote in their countries of residence.”
ND, PASOK and the Potami party left parliament before a vote on the Novartis case, charging that the leftist-rightist government first engineered charges of bribery and money laundering against 10 top opposition politicians – past prime ministers, health minsters, the current EU Commissioner and the Bank of Greece governor. The opposition said mudslinging was the reason behind the indictment, and when charges fizzled out during hearings by a majority-dominated Parliamentary committee of inquiry, the coalition government merely instructed its deputies to send the case back to the justice system.
