The issue of the voting rights of expatriate Greeks is again wide open. And it has opened up in the most official and promising way with a statement – a promise – by the triumphant winner of the May 21 elections, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is very likely to emerge again as Prime Minister in the elections of June 25, 2023.

Specifically, in a statement to Alpha TV he said: “20,000 Hellenes Abroad – I should say a little less than 20,000 – voted. More could not vote because everyone was quick to put obstacles in the way of how one registers on the electoral rolls abroad.”

That is the crux of the matter. Kyriakos kept his campaign promise to grant the right to vote to expatriates. Despite his best efforts, however (because he did not have 200 votes in Parliament as the Constitution requires) he could not overcome ‘the obstacles’ put up by others to prevent us from voting. But he rightly preferred to compromise and pass what he could through the Parliament, stunted as the legislation was, in the hope that he could later improve it. And this might happen much sooner than was possible to imagine at the time.

Kyriakos suggests the following solution: “It’s very simple. You’re registered on the electoral rolls, you confirm it, and you vote from wherever you want. This will be the proposal that I will make in the next Parliament, if the Greek people give us their trust. I hope and wish that we will find the 200 deputies.”

Let everyone weigh in: Do we want to simplify the procedure and eliminate the obstacles, or do we want to continue to inconvenience – if not insult – Hellenes abroad?

That’s the question every one is called to answer.