By D. Hatzinikolas
The embattled leftist government in Athens is waiting for good news on Tuesday from Brussels, where it expects the last, post-Eurogroup, "open issues" with creditors to be resolved in order for the first of two loan tranches to be disbursed into Greek state coffers.
The most prominent “details” up for resolution are the signing of a contract to allow a massive real estate project to proceed at the coastal Helleniko site; a 5-percent transfer of Hellenic Telephony (OTE) stock to Deutsche Telekom (DT) by the privatization fund and a draft plan by the civil aviation authority for reforms in the sector in the autumn. DT already holds the management of OTE, the previously state-owned telecoms company that was once Greece's telephone utility.
If the week proves successful in terms of finalizing the first review of the Greek program, then the government has signaled it will proceed with a set of legislative initiatives and even up open discussion on the always contentious subject of election law changes and even constitutional revision.
Changes to the constitution require two Parliamentary terms arising from separate elections, whereas the election law can be passed by this Parliament plenum.
According to government sources, PM Alexis Tsipras and his closest aides are considering an “Italian” election law model, with the aim supposedly being approval by 200 deputies out of the 300 in Parliament, something that would mean changes go into effect during the next election.
Some of the rumored changes involve breaking up the biggest election precincts in the country so that no district fields more than 10 MPs; giving teens the right to vote of 17 and reducing the “first-past-the-post” bonus to 20 or 30 seats, as opposed to the current 50.
Nevertheless, the threshold for entering Parliament will reportedly remain at 3 percent of the general vote – a figure that benefits small and often marginal political parties.
