Filenews 24 September 2021 - by Frixos Dalitis
Limitation on the terms of service of elected officials of the Local Government and the European Parliament, participation in the second distribution of independent combinations with the same percentage as the parties and horizontal voting, are the issues that come back to parliament.
A series of law proposals concerning amendments to the electoral law were submitted by the MPs of ecologists Charalambos Theopemptou and Alexandra Attalidou, as well as the MP of the Democratic Party - Cooperation of Democratic Forces Marinos Mousiouttas. In the first proposal, which concerns the Law on the Election of Members of the European Parliament, it provides that if a person has already served two terms as a Member of the European Parliament, he/she will not be entitled to stand for a 3rd term. A proposal to limit terms of office was also tabled for mayors with the restriction being on the non-right to stand for those who have already served the office of mayor for three terms.
The three MPs also tabled a bill aimed at establishing a horizontal voting procedure during the elections to the European Parliament to give citizens who do not support a particular party the opportunity to vote for candidates from various combinations. In particular, according to the provisions of this bill, ballot papers on which no party preference is recorded and there is a selection of candidates will not be considered invalid, as is currently the case. In this regard, as stated in the explanatory statement, those citizens who do not have a party choice will be able to participate in the electoral process and will choose to abstain and distance themselves from politics.
The same reasoning concerns the bill submitted by them and concerns the parliamentary elections. At the same time, the bill mentions the intention to repeal the anachronistic provision of the legislation according to which either candidates or their representatives or any combination of candidates with the emblems of their parties are present at the polling stations. The proposed abolition is necessary, it is noted, so as not to put psychological pressure on voters before exercising their right to vote, both at the polling stations and through home visits, with the aim that citizens who choose not to vote are forced to do so, since there is a record by the representatives of the parties of the voters who have voted.
A law proposal co-signed along with the three above MPs by the parliamentary representative of DISY Nikos Tornaritis and MP Dimitris Demetriou, was submitted to the Plenum, for the institutionalization of horizontal voting in Municipal Elections.
Finally, the Member of Parliament for Ecologists Alexandra Attalidou submitted a law proposal so that the lists of independents can participate in the second distribution of seats in the parliamentary elections, provided that they obtain 3.6% of the total valid votes in the entire territory of the Republic.
