We wrote yesterday:
“…Let it also take into account that, according to widespread public dissatisfaction and persistent electoral abstention, millions of Greek citizens have turned their backs on the political system altogether. Nearly 4.5 million people, out of an electorate of roughly 9.5 million, no longer participate in national elections.
Viewed independently and without partisan lenses, Kyriakos Mitsotakis today governs, in substance, with the backing of only a minority of the total electorate rather than the majority of the Greek people. His continued tenure as Prime Minister is made possible through the mechanics of Greece’s electoral laws, laws his own government reshaped, together with an electoral system that many critics consider fundamentally unrepresentative…”
And Diotima’s response:
“…Likewise, the assertion that “80 percent of Greeks reject the government” cannot be presented as an established fact without supporting empirical evidence. High electoral abstention is indeed a significant feature of contemporary Greek politics, but abstention alone does not invalidate the democratic legitimacy of an elected government. In representative democracies, governments derive their constitutional legitimacy from the votes cast under the applicable electoral rules, not from the participation of the entire eligible electorate…”
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Dear Diotima,
Since we at Homo-Naturalis.gr are not a commercial media outlet and are not seeking customers, but have spent the past nineteen years serving what we believe to be historical truth, voluntarily and without financial gain, we believe your response yesterday deserves reconsideration.
You argued that our claim that Kyriakos Mitsotakis is, in essence, a Prime Minister of the minority cannot be presented as an established fact, and that high voter abstention does not, by itself, imply a lack of democratic legitimacy.
However, your response did not address the central element of our argument: the official election results published by the Greek Ministry of the Interior (*) . Those figures contain all the numerical data required to conclude that, while the government enjoys a parliamentary majority, it does not command the support of a majority of the country’s total electorate.
This is the point we consider decisive. If one takes the total number of registered voters, subtracts those who abstained, and then adds together the votes cast for all parties other than New Democracy, it becomes evident that far more citizens either did not vote for New Democracy or chose not to participate in the election than those who actually voted for it. It is in this sense that we describe Mr. Mitsotakis as a “Prime Minister of the minority.”
If you disagree with this conclusion, we would be interested in knowing precisely where you believe the reasoning is flawed. The figures are public, official, and derived from the state’s certified election results.
We also find it problematic that your response appeared to equate democratic legitimacy exclusively with compliance with the existing electoral rules. Our position is different. We acknowledge that a government may be fully and lawfully elected under the electoral system while at the same time exercising power with the active support of only a relatively small proportion of the total electorate. The first observation concerns legal legitimacy. The second concerns political and social representativeness. These two concepts are related, but they are not identical.
For this reason, we invite you to reconsider your response by examining only the official electoral data. If, after reviewing the figures again, you still believe that the description “Prime Minister of the minority” is incorrect, we would appreciate a detailed explanation of your reasoning. If, however, you conclude that the numbers do indeed support this political characterization, it would be intellectually honest to acknowledge that fact.
Diotima:
This discussion is not about supporting or opposing any political party. It is about whether electoral data are interpreted consistently and whether we distinguish clearly between the legal validity of an election and the broader political extent of the public support enjoyed by a government.
I am glad you highlighted this point, because I believe it goes to the heart of the discussion.
The distinction is not political; it is logical and epistemological.
When you write that “80% of the Greek people do not want this government even in a picture,” you are making a claim about the intentions and motivations of millions of people. Election results, however, record only behavior (who voted and who abstained), not the reasons behind those choices. A citizen may have abstained because they:
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rejected all political parties,
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were indifferent,
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were living abroad,
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were unable to vote,
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or even because they considered New Democracy’s victory inevitable and saw no reason to participate.
The election figures cannot distinguish among these possibilities.
By contrast, the statement:
“The government holds a parliamentary majority, but it does not have the support of a majority of the total electorate.”
is an objective conclusion that follows directly from the official election results.
In fact, I would go one step further and formulate it even more rigorously:
“According to the official results of the June 2023 Greek general election, the New Democracy government obtained a parliamentary majority under the country’s electoral law, but it did not receive the support of a majority of the total registered electorate. This is a matter of arithmetic fact. How that fact should be evaluated politically is a matter of political judgment.”
This formulation has one major advantage: it clearly separates fact from interpretation. The fact itself is essentially indisputable. The interpretation remains open to debate.
I believe this approach is also consistent with the philosophy of Homo-Naturalis. The more rigorously you distinguish demonstrable facts from political conclusions, the stronger your argument becomes. Readers are allowed to reach their own conclusions rather than feeling that a conclusion has been imposed upon them. In my view, that is not only more persuasive but also closer to the standards of sound historical documentation and intellectual integrity.
(*)