4 parties abstain from referendum discussion on "small PPC"

Author: newsroom  | Published: July 11, 2014

A hard game of poker at today’s extraordinary summer session on the referendum as SYRIZA, KKE, ANEL and DIMAR declare absence

Opposition parties will be absent from today’s meeting of the extraordinary summer plenary session to decide over a referendum issue for the “small PPC”. The main opposition party, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), along with the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), the Democratic Left (DIMAR) and Independent Greeks (ANEL) said that they consider the procedure that the Conference of Presidents have decided to follow as unconstitutional. An announcement by SYRIZA’s parliamentary group secretary Nikos Voutsis yesterday said the party has decided not to legitimize the process because the “decision by the government is absolutely unconstituional, flagrantly violates the Parliament’s rules of order and it is moving towards the direction of a deeply undemocratic deviance.” On its part, the ANEL party called the meeting taking place today “a parody session”.

Yesterday, ANEL leader Pavlos Kammenos had contacted main opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, DIMAR leader Fotis Kouvelis, and KKE Secretary General Dimitris Koutsoumbas, to explore the possibility of a common line.

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The coalition government points to a similar procedure being followed in 2008 when the plenary was called to decide wither there was a similarity of proposals made by parties so that they could be numbered together to receive the required 120 votes. Furthermore, the government believes that the parties absence is to avoid responding to whether they wish their signatures to be counted alongside those of the ultranationalist Golden Dawn party as the proposal of the KKE isn’t considered uniform to the rest.

“Facing the risk of their public humiliation they decided to abstain from the Parliament discussion”, says government spokeswoman Sophia Voultepsi, adding that the opposition’s reaction reveals “hypocrisy and opportunism in all its splendor”.

The Conference of Presidents will decide today if the seven different requests for a referendum can be put together in an acceptable constitutional proposal and decide if:

* they can gather at least 120 signatures

* the bill regulates serious social issues

* the bill regulates fiscal matters