ATHENS – Taking a political gamble that goes outside tradition, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has nominated his ruling New Democracy’s party Parliament Speaker Konstantinos Tasoulas for the largely symbolic role of Greek President.
In doing so, Mitsotakis backed away from renominating current President Katerina Sakellaropoulou, a former judge, who had been seen as losing support in the Conservatives for supporting same sex marriage – which Mitsotakis proposed.
Needing 200 of the 300 votes in Parliament to get a President elected, Prime Ministers have chosen more neutral figures not tied to politics but Mitsotakis noted that the little-known Tasoulas had received 283, 270 and 249 votes in becoming Speaker, a far different office than President.
In 2015, then Premier and New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras brought down his own government by nominating the party’s Vice-President to be Greek President, precipitating a political crisis that brought a snap election he lost.
Mitsotakis is taking the chance that Tasoulas will be viewed differently. In a prerecorded address, Mitsotakis said that, “The broad acceptance of Mr. Tasoulas stems from the fact that he has been elected speaker of the Hellenic Parliament three times with the strongest majorities in the post-dictatorship era .”
Mitsotakis also said he broke with tradition in nominating someone from his own party because he believes the public will trust the decision although New Democracy has 156 seats in Parliament and Tasoulas would need at least 44 more.
“Neither the different backgrounds of a President and a Prime Minister guarantee institutional balance, nor does their political alignment inherently create risks for the state,” he said.
How that will be viewed by political rivals could be problematic, however, as Tasoulas would need support from the major rival PASOK, the SYRIZA Leftists, the KKE Communists, and others in Parliament, the ultranationalist Greek Solution already rejecting him for President.
Mitsotakis thanked Sakellaropoulou for her service, praising her for humanizing the presidency but said that Greece now needs a President with “a long-standing public service record and clear political attributes.”
Those would be New Democracy’s position as Tasoulas, a lawyer by profession who had held positions as culture and sports minister and deputy defense minister is an unknown to the public and as the Speaker’s role is to support the Prime Minister.
In addition, Mitsotakis proposed a constitutional change to limit the President of the Hellenic Republic to a single six-year term, stating his intention to bring this forward during the next constitutional revision.
The voting for the President is due to be Jan. 25. To win in the first or second round, a candidate needs 200 votes, with that number dropping to 180 in the third round and a simple parliamentary majority of 151 in the fourth.
The other leading candidate for consideration was the far better known Evangelos Venizelos, a former leader of PASOK who served New Democracy as a junior partner in an odd coalition and is a Constitutional Professor of Law.
