The
Greek Parliament (
Voulí ton Ellínon) has 300 members, elected for a four-year term by a system of "reinforced"
proportional representation. Of the 300 seats, 285 are allocated to 59
constituencies, 50 of which are multi-seat and 9 single-seat. The remaining 15 MPs are elected from nationwide
party lists, of which 3 are required to represent the
Greek diaspora. Seat allocation to individual parties is done on the basis of their nationwide vote share, provided they have reached the electoral threshold of 3%. In each constituency, voters may select the candidate or candidates of their choice by marking their name on the party ballot. In 2016, the previous parliament, under a
left-wing majority, abolished the reinforced proportionality system, which had been in effect since 2004. The previous system had been boosting the first party's seat count with 50 "bonus" seats, in order to facilitate single-party absolute majorities in parliament. It was replaced by a
party-list proportional representation system, under which single-party parliamentary majorities, commonly achieved by first parties under previous electoral systems, could now only be achieved with a vote share of at least 45%, effectively making coalition governments the norm. On those grounds, and arguing that proportional representation would cause political instability, the new law was strongly contested by the conservative opposition and failed to get the two thirds supermajority required by the constitution for a new electoral system to be immediately applied in the next election. Hence, the previous system was still applied in the
2019 election, which the opposition won, whereas the new system was applied in the
2023 election for the first time. In 2020, parliament, under its
new conservative majority, repealed party-list proportional representation and reverted the system to a sliding scale majority bonus system. The new system is similar to the pre-2016 reinforced majority system, with the only difference being that the size of the majority bonus is now tied to the largest party's national vote share, ranging from a minimum of 20 seats for a vote share of 25% to a maximum of 50 seats for vote shares of 40% and above; no majority bonus is awarded to the first party if its vote share is below 25%. Under normal circumstances, an absolute majority can be achieved by the first party with 38% of the vote. However, as was the case with the proportional representation system voted by the previous parliament in 2016, the two thirds supermajority required by the constitution for a new electoral system to be immediately applied in the next election (in May 2023) was not met, and, therefore, the new system only started to be applied to the next election after that, which was held a month later in June 2023. Greek citizens
aged 17 and over on the year of the election are eligible to vote, and at the age of 25 and over are also eligible to be elected to Parliament.
Women's suffrage was adopted in 1952.
Constituencies Constituencies in Greece have traditionally been multi-seat, and they mostly coincide with prefectures. The number of seats is adjusted once every ten years, following the decennial population census. Prefecture constituencies may not be deprived of representation, nor may they be merged with another prefecture; they may however be split into smaller constituencies if their population increases disproportionately: this was the case with the Athens B constituency which was split into three smaller constituencies in 2019. Population changes have left nine (
Kefalonia,
Lefkas,
Eurytania,
Grevena,
Samos,
Thesprotia,
Kastoria,
Phocis and
Zakynthos) prefectures with a single parliamentary seat each, whereas some urban or suburban constituencies have seen large increases in their seat allotment over the years. Following the census of 2021, the largest constituencies can be found in the metropolitan areas of
Athens and
Thessaloniki. These are
Athens B3 (19 seats),
Thessaloniki A (17 seats),
Athens B1 (16 seats),
Athens A (13 seats),
Athens B2 (12 seats) and
East Attica (12 seats). The remaining constituencies elect single-digit numbers of MPs. The largest constituency outside Athens and Thessaloniki is
Achaea which has 9 seats.
Voting Polling takes place in school buildings on a Sunday, a festive occasion for students who are then given a four-day weekend off. The procedure is run by a presiding judge or attorney-at-law appointed by the local
bar association, and secretarially assisted by local citizens selected by lot in a process resembling
jury duty. Local party representatives are allowed to monitor tallying; their theoretical role is to ensure transparency. Police presence varies as police officers might be allocated to stand guard at an individual polling centre or supervise-that is, to patrol the general vicinity of-more than one polling centre (especially in the countryside). Up until 1998, the responsibility of guarding polling stations was shared between the
Hellenic Armed Forces and the
Hellenic Police, while there was no provision for laissez faire supervision of multiple polling centres. During the 2019
European Parliament and
local elections, police officers on guard received orders not to be armed only during the morning and afternoon shift of the day of the election, something in sharp contrast with past practices, while police unionists noted that the duty of guarding a polling centre should not fall on a single officer per shift. In 2021, the mention of the past presence of armed
Hellenic Army soldiers in polling centres by a
New Democracy MP in parliament was decried by
Avgi.
Electoral system The Greek electoral system was
codified for the first time by Presidential Decree in 2012; prior to that date it was made up of various pieces of legislation passed at different times. The current system is called "reinforced proportionality" in Greece (ενισχυμένη αναλογική), and is a form of
semi-proportional representation with a 50-seat
majority bonus for the party that wins a
plurality of the vote. There is also an
electoral threshold of 3% which all parties and individuals need to pass on a national level before being awarded any seats. These provisions are aimed at helping the largest party secure an absolute majority of parliamentary seats (151 out of 300), enhancing governmental stability. The majority bonus of 50 seats was abolished in 2016, The 50-seat majority bonus system was used for the first time in the
May 2012 election; it reserves 50 parliamentary seats for the party emerges as the largest by total votes cast on a national level. The remaining 250 seats are divided proportionally
in parliamentary constituencies according to each party's total
valid vote percentage; this is slightly higher than the raw percentage reported, as there is always a small number of invalidated or "blank" votes (usually less than 1%), as well as the percentage of smaller parties that fail to surpass the 3% threshold, all of which are disregarded for the purpose of seat allotment. The previous law (used in the 2009 legislative elections) was less favorable for the plurality party, as only 40 additional seats were reserved for them. Articles 99 and 100 of the codified electoral law lay out the way in which parties are allocated seats in accordance with the percentage of votes they received in a legislative election. Many Greeks choose to retain their voting rights in their family's original home, sometimes by reason of tradition, sometimes by reason of patronage. Since the abolition of Electoral Booklets in 2001, each and every voter is provided with a 13-digit Special Electoral Number. This number is used solely for proving the uniqueness of the voter and excluding any possibility of double voting. Any other use of the number is deemed illegal and carries a penalty of at least a year in prison and fine from €2934.70 up to €29,347.03, unless other acts have taken place. This number consists of: • a four-digit code corresponding to a Municipality or Community(0101-
Agia Varvara to 5410-
Psara) • the last three digits of the voter's birth year (999 for 1999, et cetera) • a five-digit code that reflects the ranking of each new voter, in relation to his year of birth, which is unique per Municipality or Community and is allocated to the basis of first available number • a number (or letter) in relation to the aforementioned codes used for the verification of the correct registration of all the 12-digit sequence. The Special Electoral Number remains the same, even if the voter chooses to transfer their voting rights to another constituency. The
Constitution provides, following the amendment of 2001, for the right of Greek citizens living abroad to vote for the legislative elections and the law implementing this constitutional provision was passed in 2019.
Compulsory voting is the law in
Greece but is not enforced. In the past a citizen had to present an up-to-date election booklet to be issued a driver licence or a passport, or else justify why they did not vote (e.g. because of absence, infirmity, or advanced old age). Nowadays the civic duty of voting is still considered "mandatory" but there are no sanctions for failing to vote. Turnout at national elections is low: a mere 61.8% at the
2023 election.
Political culture Before 1910, Greece lacked a coherent
party system in accordance with the traits of the modern
representative democracy. The political formations of the 19th century lacked a steady organizational structure and a clear ideological orientation. Sometimes, they constituted just the incoherent and ephemeral escort of a prominent politician. The first Greek parties with an ideological background, conforming to the modern conception of a political party, appeared after 1910, when
Eleftherios Venizelos rose to predominance in
Greek political life and founded his
Liberal Party. The liberal wave of
Venizelism resulted soon in the reaction of the "old-system" political leaders, who formed the core of an opposing conservative movement, which used the monarchy as its main rallying banner. Thereby, the two biggest ideological movements, the republican centrist-liberal and the monarchist conservative, emerged and formed massive political organizations. The centrist and the conservative parties bitterly confronted each other in the ensuing legislative elections for many decades, until
metapolitefsi. After the
metapolitefsi of 1974, the leftist-socialist movement supplanted the centrists and took the main part of their electorate. A smaller part of erstwhile centrists, along with most conservatives, affiliated themselves with the centre-right
New Democracy party, which self-defined as a liberal party and drafted the republican
Constitution of 1975. Until recently, Greece has had a
two-party system dominated by the liberal-conservative
New Democracy (ND) and the center-left
Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). Other parties won far fewer seats. Beginning in the
May and
June 2012 legislative elections,
SYRIZA (the Coalition of the Radical Left) overtook PASOK as the main force of the left wing. After almost three years of opposition to the
ND-PASOK coalition government, SYRIZA took the most votes in the
January 2015 elections and formed government, while PASOK just barely crossed the threshold. Currently, the left is represented in Parliament by the
Communist Party of Greece (KKE), SYRIZA,
PASOK-KINAL,
Course of Freedom and the
New Left. To the right of ND, lies
Kyriakos Velopoulos'
Greek Solution,
Niki and the
Spartans.
Election results (Left-Right spectrum) 2023 election == Election of the President of the Republic ==