The bill passed with the required majority, but not the amendment, which required an increased majority of 200 votes to be approved.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With 158 positive votes, the bill for postal voting in the European elections and national referendums was approved by the Hellenic Parliament.<\/p>\n
In the end, only the MPs of New Democracy voted in favor of the bill, as after the submission of the controversial amendment that provided for the extension of the right to vote by letter to the national elections, SYRIZA and PASOK revised their position and voted against the bill as a whole.<\/p>\n
In total, 135 MPs from SYRIZA, PASOK, KKE, Hellenic Solution, Spartans, Niki and New Left voted against the bill. The deputies of Plefsis Eleftherias declared themselves "present" in the vote.<\/p>\n
Therefore, the bill passed with the required majority, but not the amendment, which required an increased majority of 200 votes to pass.<\/p>\n
However, both the Greek Prime Minister and the competent Minister of the Interior, Niki Kerameos, stated that the amendment to extend postal voting to national elections will be brought back by the Government after the European elections.<\/p>\n
"The reality is one. Today, through this legislative initiative of the New Democracy, the postal vote becomes law, for the first time in the history of the Greek state. The removal, for the first time, of all practical obstacles for our fellow citizens, in Greece and abroad, to exercise the right to vote", said Mrs. Kerameos, at the conclusion of the relevant parliamentary debate.<\/p>\n
"If the 200 votes required for the approval of the amendment that enables Greeks abroad to participate by postal vote in the national elections are not reached, we will be here to bring it again and again until we enable our Greek compatriots to they vote by letter", he concluded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The bill for postal voting in European elections and national referendums was approved by the Greek Parliament with 158 positive votes. Only members of the New Democracy party voted in favor of the bill, while other parties, including SYRIZA and PASOK, voted against it. The bill was passed with the required majority, but the amendment that would have extended postal voting to national elections did not receive the necessary 200 votes to be approved. The Greek Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior stated that the amendment will be reintroduced after the European elections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3,153,194],"class_list":["post-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cyprus","tag-cyprus","tag-elections","tag-iiiiii"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\n