New ‘two-day’ Parliament to be sworn in on Sunday

The parliamentary deputies elected in the May 21 general elections will be sworn in at 6 p.m. on Sunday, in the presence of the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou and caretaker prime minister, Ioannis Sarmas.

The new parliament’s inaugural session will open with 1st Vice-President of Parliament Nikitas Kaklamanis in the chair, assisted by the four temporary Secretaries, who are the youngest MPs in each party.

Kaklamanis will read out the Order of the Day and submit the names of the 300 elected deputies for the record, as well as reading out the letters sent to the Parliament presidium by the political party leaders regarding which of the three parliamentary seats in which they stood for election they intend to keep.

Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos will then be invited to conduct the customary blessing ceremony, after which the MPs that wish to swear an oath based on the Orthodox faith will be asked to stand and recite a text in which they pledge allegiance to the country and democracy, to obey the Constitution and the laws and conscientiously fulfill their duties.

The Archbishop will then complete the ceremony and sign a document for the records.

Members of the clergy will then be asked to depart from the chamber and the process will be repeated for the Muslim MPs who will swear on the Quran, followed by the MPs who want to be sworn in through a civil affirmation.

The session will then end, with the chair inviting the MPs to authorize the presidium to ratify the records and asking them to return at 10:30 a.m. on Monday for the election of the parliament president.

President Sakellaropoulou will watch the swearing-in of the MPs from the first row of seats for Parliament officials, while the rest of the seats will be occupied by any of the former prime ministers, former parliament presidents, senior judges and state officials who wish to attend. An additional row of seats below those of the officials will be filled by representatives of foreign Churches and faiths.

Occupying the ministerial seats will be caretaker Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas and members of the caretaker government.

Several ambassadors and foreign diplomatic delegations have been invited to attend the ceremony from the diplomats’ gallery.

Election of the Parliament President

The new Parliament will convene again on Monday at 10:30 a.m., with Kaklamanis again presiding. He will begin by reading out the letters of the presidents of the parliamentary groups regarding the persons they propose to serve as the new parliament president, as it is forbidden for candidates to put themselves forward.

New Democracy President Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose party has the largest numbers of seats in the new Parliament, has proposed the current Parliament President Konstantinos Tasoulas. The Parliament President is elected in a roll-call vote and needs an absolute majority of at least 151 MPs to be elected in the first round. If no candidate gets 151 votes, the process is repeated and the individual with the highest number of votes is elected.

Kaklamanis will then announce the result and invite the elected Parliament president to take over the chair.

After a brief recess, the House will convene again in order to elect the Vice-Presidents, deans and secretaries, again by roll-call vote. New Democracy elects the first, second and third vice-presidents of Parliament, while the opposition parties will elect the third, fourth and fifth.

Once the election of the new presidium is concluded, the new Parliament President will conclude the session, which will also mark the conclusion of this parliament’s first and only meeting.

President Sakellaropoulou will then issue a Presidential Decree that dissolves the parliament of May 21 and proclaims general elections on June 25, as well as setting a date for swearing in the next Parliament. This will be co-signed by caretaker Prime Minister Ioannis Sarmas and the caretaker government ministers and sent to Parliament to be posted by the Parliament Guard.

This will be the second “two-day” parliament in the history of the third Hellenic Republic, formed after the return of democracy in 1974. The first was formed after the elections of May 2012, when the parties were again unable to form a government. [AMNA]