Politics of Greece

Greece is a parliamentary representative democratic republic, where the President of Greece is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Greece is the head of government within a multi-party system. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Hellenic Parliament. Between the restoration of democracy in 1974 and the Greek government-debt crisis, the party system was dominated by the liberal-conservative New Democracy and the social-democratic PASOK. Since 2012, the anti-austerity, democratic socialist party Syriza has taken the place of PASOK as the largest left wing party, with their first election victory in January 2015.

The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.

The Constitution of Greece, which describes Greece as a "presidential parliamentary republic", includes extensive specific guarantees of civil liberties and vests the powers of the head of state in a president elected by parliament. The Greek governmental structure is similar to that found in many other Western democracies, and has been described as a compromise between the French and German models. The prime minister and cabinet play the central role in the political process, while the president performs some executive and legislative functions in addition to ceremonial duties. Voting in Greece is officially compulsory, but this is not enforced.[1]

  1. ^ "Compulsory Voting". International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Retrieved 4 December 2019.

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