Legislative elections are scheduled be held in Greece by July 2023. All 300 seats in the Hellenic Parliament will be contested. They will be the first elections since 1990 in which the electoral system will not use a bonus seats system, after the 2016 repeal of semi-proportional representation.

Electoral system

The electoral law in effect for the next legislative election (in 2023 at the latest) is set to be the one voted in 2016 by the second last legislature, where SYRIZA held a plurality. This is due to a constitutional provision on amendments to the electoral law: a two-thirds majority (200 or more votes of the Vouli) is necessary for the law to take immediate effect, and for want of such a supermajority, an electoral law comes into effect only in the next-but-one election. SYRIZA's 2016 law is a switch back to simple

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

. It ditched the 50-seat

majority bonus The majority bonus system (MBS) is a form of semi-proportional representation used in some European countries. Its feature is a majority bonus which gives extra seats or representation in an elected body to the party or to the joined parties with ...

in place since 1990 (although thresholds were amended over time). In January 2020, soon after returning to power,

New Democracy New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a concept based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path that was decisively distinc ...

, which has always been a proponent of majority bonuses since 1974, passed a new electoral law to reinstate them albeit under a very different formula. The party list coming first shall receive 20 extra seats (down from 50, with the remaining seats up from 250 to 280). Moreover, a new sliding scale disproportionality shall help the larger party lists: those receiving between 25% and 40% of the vote will receive one seat for every half percentage point in this range (up to 30 seats), before the proper proportional distribution begins. A winning party may thus receive up to 50 extra seats. However, this 2020 law also lacked the supermajority to take immediate effect. As a result, it will take effect only in the second next election (2027 at the latest).

Compulsory voting Compulsory voting, also called mandatory voting, is the requirement in some countries that eligible citizens register and vote in elections. Penalties might be imposed on those who fail to do so without a valid reason. According to the CIA World ...

will be in force for the elections, with voter registration being automatic. However, none of the legally existing penalties or sanctions have ever been enforced.

Opinion polls

OpinionPollingGreeceLegislativeElectionNext

References

Works cited

* {{Greek elections

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

Parliamentary elections in Greece

Legislative A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government. Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...