So two questions. (1) How come an unelected Greek banker can become PM ....

[non sociopath skin]

... without the electorate's say-so?

(2) What guarantees are there that the same thing couldn't happen here?

I seek merely for information.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

1. So far as I know, you have got to be in Parliament to be Prime Minister

Even in our pre-democratic days, they had to be in parliament, though not necessarily elected (often they were Lords).

It would in fact be theoretically possible for an unelected banker to become PM, if he were first appointed to the House of Lords and then selected as leader by a Party. I think it's fairly unlikely, however. As recently as the 1960s, a hereditary peer -Home - was chosen as Tory leader, BUT he was expected to resign his peerage and seek election to a parliamentary seat.

I just had a look at the Greek constitution:

http://www.hri.org/docs/syntagma/artcl25.html#A3

It says that 'the form of government shall be a parliamentary republic'; but it doesn't seem to specify details at that level, unless I'm missing something. So I suppose it can be interpreted freely.

Of course we don't have a constitution at all, so....

[tjwmason]

2. Articles 37 and 38 give more details

I think that the most pertinent paragraph relating to the current situation is Article 38, para 2 (from the same source):

"2. Should the Prime Minister resign or be deceased, the President of the Republic shall appoint as Prime Minister the person proposed by the parliamentary group of the party to which the former belonged. Such proposal must be submitted within three days at the latest. Until the appointment of the new Prime Minister, the discharge of the Prime Minister's duties is undertaken by the first in order Deputy Prime Minister or Minister."

In that PASOK has a majority of seats, the above implies that whomever PASOK selects should be appointed.

As for our constitution - it is both stronger and weaker. The lack of a formal legal requirements would give potential flexibility (for both good and ill) were we to face similarly extreme circumstances; but the tradition that the Prime Minister must be in Parliament (and, since the appointment of Arthur Balfour, in the House of Commons) weighs very heavily. If Lord Hume couldn't get away with being P.M. in the Lords back then, I doubt that a hypothetical banker could now.

Of course, given the nature of our electoral system it is certainly not impossible that a back-bencher in an ultra safe seat could be 'persuaded' to resign/get kicked up-stairs allowing the banker to be comfortably elected in a by-election.