KKE chief says party will vote for abolition of 50-seat bonus

Communist Party (KKE) leader Dimitris Koutsoumbas clarified in an interview published on Saturday that his party would vote for the scrapping of the 50-seat bonus for the election winner.

KKE’s stance had been equivocal in the previous few days but the coalition’s decision to create two separate articles in the draft law for the abolition of the bonus and the maintenance of the 3 percent threshold for any party to enter Parliament, which the communists opposed, appears to have cleared the way for Koutsoumbas and his colleagues to approve the bill.

The Communist leader told Ependisi newspaper that apart from voting for the article regarding the bonus, his party would also support the reduction of the voting age from 18 to 17.

Despite the support from KKE, the government still does not look like getting the 200 votes it needs in Parliament to pass the changes to the electoral law with a super-majority that would mean the new system applies straight away rather than after the next general elections.

New Democracy, PASOK and To Potami, as well as three independent MPs have said they will not vote for the proposed changes.