‘Very worrying’: Three far-right parties enter Greek parliament

When leaders of the neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn were jailed in 2020, it was seen as an end to the party – once the third largest force in the Greek parliament – and the far-right ideology it had tried to mainstream.

All of that was called into question this week with the election of three far-right parties, including Spartans, backed by former Golden Dawn frontman Ilias Kasidiaris.When leaders of the neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn were jailed in 2020, it was seen as an end to the party – once the third largest force in the Greek parliament – and the far-right ideology it had tried to mainstream.

All of that was called into question this week with the election of three far-right parties, including Spartans, backed by former Golden Dawn frontman Ilias Kasidiaris.Spartans as well as the pro-Russian party Greek Solution and ultra-Orthodox Niki (Victory) scooped up 34 seats out of an available 300 and accounted for more than 12 percent of the vote.

Kasidiaris is serving a 13-year jail sentence for membership in Golden Dawn, now considered a criminal organisation. From prison, he urged his supporters to vote for Spartans after his party, Hellenes, was banned from running.He regularly broadcasts from jail and attracts tens of thousands of views on his YouTube channel.

Golden Dawn was known for its Nazi salutes and violent street attacks, particularly on refugees and migrants. It was also linked to the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013.

Although the three far-right parties account for a small minority of the political make-up of the parliament, concerns remain about what their views on issues such as abortion, migration and LGBTQ+ rights could mean for Greek politics.

“After the Golden Dawn trial, I think people got a bit complacent about what was going on in that kind of space and thought that that might put a lid on it – but obviously, that hasn’t happened,” said Georgia Nakou, a political and financial analyst focusing on Greece who contributes to the Greek analytical site Macropolis.

He regularly broadcasts from jail and attracts tens of thousands of views on his YouTube channel.

Golden Dawn was known for its Nazi salutes and violent street attacks, particularly on refugees and migrants. It was also linked to the murder of rapper Pavlos Fyssas in 2013.

Although the three far-right parties account for a small minority of the political make-up of the parliament, concerns remain about what their views on issues such as abortion, migration and LGBTQ+ rights could mean for Greek politics.

“After the Golden Dawn trial, I think people got a bit complacent about what was going on in that kind of space and thought that that might put a lid on it – but obviously, that hasn’t happened,” said Georgia Nakou, a political and financial analyst focusing on Greece who contributes to the Greek analytical site Macropolis.

“I think it’s a combination of mainstream parties, and particularly New Democracy, legitimising a lot of the right-wing agenda, particularly the anti-immigration stuff,” she said.

“Because New Democracy has been worried about losing votes to these parties on the right, they have been adopting some of their policies and their rhetoric, for example, on family values or migration or ‘culture wars’ issues.”

Nakou pointed out that this has not led to any greater election success for the conservative governing party, which won 158 seats in Sunday’s elections, but failed to significantly increase its parliamentary majority from the 2019 elections, in which it toppled the left-wing party Syriza party from power.

“Any kind of advantage, that they may have thought they’d gained has been ceded to this fringe space,” she said, adding that it would now be important to monitor how rights such as abortion became suddenly up for debate.