The recent public intervention by the Founding Council of the Hellenic Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HACCI) National Federation, regarding the restrictive prerequisites set by the Greek state to the Greek diasporas in general, and to the Greek Australians in particular, to exercise their voting rights in the upcoming May 21st parliamentary elections in Greece, raises a number of issues worth exploring.

HACCI’s main requests, as put to the political leadership of Greece, are the following:

– Given the vastness of Australia, there is a need for the establishment of at least one voting centre per state. As thing stand now, for the entire continent, there is provision for only two voting centres, one in Melbourne and one in Sydney. Alternatively, HACCI proposes, if the voting centres are located more than 300 km away from the place of residency of a voter, the Greek government should cover the expenses for transportation and accommodation.

– There is a request for the new government elect after the May 21st parliamentary elections, to review the relevant 2019 law, in consultation with the Greek Consulates, the Greek Communities and HACCI.

Given the inability and the indifference of the Greek state to legislate the obvious, for example the postal vote, any public intervention that keeps the issue alive, including this one from HACCI, is in principle welcomed.

Almost all the requests, are common sense requests. HACCI’s voice though, like any other Greek-Australian voice, given the very low number of voters from Australia registered to vote in Greece, is marginal. Furthermore, HACCI’s influence within the broader Australian-Greek community is also limited, given its nature, as a chamber of commerce and industry.

However, the public stand of this business organisation on the voting issue, and at the same time the public silence of the historic Greek-Australian secular community organisations in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and elsewhere, these two simultaneous events, speak volumes about the diminishing influence, as well as the inability of the Communities nowadays, to protect their own space and their own leading, once upon a time, role in the domain and in the affairs of the secular world.

Regarding various other aspects of HACCI’s criticism towards Greece now

Yes, the current legislation and laws covering the voting rights of Greek citizens who live outside of Greece are too restrictive. They can be improved and they can become more liberal, however… The in principle, I suppose, claim that “Every adult Greek citizen regardless of where they live should have an “equal right to vote”, is a rather populist claim. All countries, including Australia, have prerequisites for their citizens who live abroad, when it comes to exercising their ultimate right as citizens, the right to vote. Australia for example, strikes off your name from the electoral roll after 6 years of permanent residency overseas.

HACCI, like others in the past, makes the point that the Greek diaspora holds assets and has economic interests in Greece and this is one of the reasons as to why it needs to have voting rights. Well, this is a rather undemocratic and strange claim, given that we are living in 2023…

Citizenship and the voting right are constitutionally guaranteed rights that have nothing to do with property and with financial interests. They had, in the 19th century, but luckily, this link was abolished over a century ago… Furthermore, the modern day financial contributions of the various Greek diasporas around the globe, especially the Greek-Australian one, to the economy of Greece, as highlighted by HACCI and others, is overstated…

Finally, it is not the role of a Greek-Australian, or of any other Greek diaspora business organisation to mediate, or to have a say, in the way citizenship and voting rights are defined by a sovereign democratic government of a secular European state like Greece. The idea that you can “dictate” your arguments from a more affluent and perhaps a more advanced democratic country of the west, towards your country of origin, for example towards Greece, is “neo-colonial”.. And of course, the example of the city of Melbourne, where a property owner has two votes instead of one, in the municipal elections, is not the democratic standard of the world…

Kostas Karamarkos is a freelance writer, journalist and a former senior advisor at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Greece.