Do the Right Thing Properly

Stavros Dimas has been nominated for the post of President of the Greek Republic. The rest needs to be done by Parliament. Today MPs will cast their votes, which need to reach 2/3 of positive votes (i.e. 200) to elect the new President. The current estimate is that positive votes are short by as many as 35-40. A second round will follow, but essentially everyone -especially the coallition Government- is already focusing on the third round, where a reduced number of positive votes is required (i.e. 3/5 or 180) and under current estimates 15 MP votes, which are instrumental for the future of the entire country. If it fails to reach consensus the third time then the Constitution provides that the Parliament shall be dissolved and new Parliamentary elections shall be carried out. No one really wants that. Very interesting game play, almost as interesting as the nomination of Stavros Dimas itself. A political figure originating from the right spectrum with lots of friends across the board. Colorless, if you ask me -allegedly very experienced and with a heavy political resume- but then again this country does not need any more color at this stage, it only needs practical and safe solutions. In times, where political ideologies have become reference points for the conduct of post World War II politics, with little to no ideological value in a Globalized political scence, people hardly understand the difference between right-centered and left-centered agendas. They only understand terms like external debt, unemployment, Government bonds, Grexit and Bankruptcy. The rest are footnotes.