Far-right parties make a comeback in Greece as conservatives sweep back to power

Athens: A little-known political party endorsed by a jailed former politician won seats in Greece’s next parliament in an election, signalling a political comeback for the far right.

The Spartans party was backed by Ilias Kasidiaris, who is currently serving 13 years in prison for membership in a criminal organisation as a former leading member of Golden Dawn – a political party of neo-Nazi origins linked to multiple violent street attacks.

Iias Kasidiaris, a former Golden Dawn politician who had been found guilty along with others of leading a criminal organization and face 13 years in prison.Credit: AP

Ahead of Sunday’s election, parliament had introduced tougher rules on election eligibility designed to block Kasidiaris from running as a candidate. A party he founded in prison was also disqualified and he switched his support to the Spartans.

“We have defeated an arrogant enemy ... this is a great triumph for Greece and our homeland,” Kasidiaris wrote in a tweet from prison in central Greece.The centre-right New Democracy party won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election, handing conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis a second term as prime minister.

Jubilant Mitsotakis supporters gathered outside party headquarters in Athens, cheering, clapping, setting off fireworks and waving blue and white party flags. Near complete results show his party has won just over 40.5 per cent of the vote, crushing his main rival, the left-wing Syriza party, which was struggling to reach 18 per cent, 2 percentage points lower than the last elections in May.

“With today’s electoral result, Greece opens a new, historic chapter in its course,” Mitsotakis said in a televised statement. Voters, he said, “gave us a strong mandate to move faster on the course of the big changes our country needs. In a loud and mature way they have permanently closed a traumatic cycle of lies and toxicity that held the country back and divided society.”

His second term as prime minister “can transform Greece at a dynamic pace of development which will increase salaries and reduce inequality, with better and free public health care, with a more effective and digital state and a strong country,” he added.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis leader of the centre-right New Democracy waves to supporters outside the headquarters of the party in Athens.Credit: AP

Sunday’s vote came just over a week after a migrant ship capsized and sank off the western coast of Greece, leaving hundreds of people dead and missing and calling into question the actions of Greek authorities and the country’s strict migration policy. But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean in recent years, did not affect the election, with domestic economic issues at the forefront of voters’ minds.

Mitsotakis’ party was projected to win 158 of Parliament’s 300 seats, thanks to a change in the electoral law that grants the winning party bonus seats. The previous election in May, conducted under a proportional representation system, left him five seats short of a majority despite winning nearly 41 per cent of the vote, and he had decided to seek a stronger mandate in a second election rather than to seek to form a coalition government with a smaller party.

Three smaller parties were set to gain national representation.

They include the Spartans and the ultra-religious Niki party which has a base of support on the fringes of the Greek Orthodox Church and gained a following over its opposition to the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program. The nationalist Hellenic Solution was returned to parliament.

Supporters of Kyriakos Mitsotakis leader of the center-right New Democracy celebrate outside the headquarters of the party in Athens.Credit: AP

With 4.7 per cent of the popular vote, the Spartans are set to win 13 seats in the 300 member parliament. Vassilis Stigas, the party’s leader, publicly thanked Kasidiaris for his support in remarks late Sunday.

“We will represent Greek ideals and values in the next parliament, values that are currently absent,” said Stigas, a businessman and former plane mechanic.

Stella Ladi, a political scientist and associate professor at Queen Mary University in London, said support had become entrenched for the far-right in many European countries.

“After Mitsotakis victory, this is the second most significant outcome of today’s election and it’s where we need to turn our attention over the next few years,” Ladi told the AP.

“We need to understand why a country which was traditionally leaning to the left gave 35 seats to the far right and what can be done to bring voters back to the center without compromising forward thinking and liberal values.”

Support for Golden Dawn and the far right surged during the politically traumatic years of the financial crisis in the previous decade. The party was represented in parliament over seven years and four election cycles before falling short of the 3 per cent threshold required for parliamentary representation in 2019 elections.

Kasidiaris and other members of the party’s leadership were jailed in 2020 after being convicted of membership of a criminal organisation over its connection to multiple violent street attacks targeting migrants and left-wing political activists.

AP

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