Greece: Far right makes resurgence

For the first time since democracy was restored in Greece in 1974, three far-right and nationalist parties have made it into parliament in Athens. Between them, they gained a total of 13% of the vote in the election on June 25. Their names: Spartiates (Spartans), Niki (Victory) and Elliniki Lisi (The Greek Solution).

The success of the Spartans, a party whose active campaigning started just a few weeks before the election, was especially surprising. It immediately became the fifth-largest political force in the country. Its leader, Vassilis Stingas, declined to answer questions from reporters on election night.

Successor to Golden Dawn?

"It's not quite correct to say the Spartans came from nowhere," Vasiliki Georgiadou, associate professor of political science at Panteion University, told DW. She points out that the party has been registered with the Supreme Court since 2017. However, nothing was heard from it for a long time. The reason for its sudden entry onto the public stage was that Ilias Kasidiaris, the former spokesman of the banned neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, actively drummed up support for the Spartans.

"Kasidiaris urged his supporters to vote for the new party in this election. I even saw leaflets in my neighborhood in which he called on them to do so," says Georgiadou, who conducts research into right-wing extremism. Before the election, the Spartans' leader, Stingas, gave a statement in which he said he was proud to have Kasidiaris's support.

From party of protest to criminal organization

Back when Greece's debt crisis was at its height, Golden Dawn became the third-largest political force in the country. However, following an investigation that began in 2013, when party supporters stabbed and killed an anti-fascist Greek musician, it was found to be operating as a criminal organization.

In October 2020, the leaders of Golden Dawn, along with dozens of its members, were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Kasidiaris, too, was jailed for 13 years. Yet it seems that now he has found a new political home. On election night, he let it be known from his prison cell that he considered the Spartans' success "a resounding defeat for the political system and a triumph for Greeks fighting for their homeland."

Possible legal repercussions

Can a leading member of the neo-Nazi party campaign from prison, and make a return to politics via the back door? Many things suggest that this will have legal repercussions. Vasiliki Georgiadou says the Spartans have acted as a Trojan horse for Kasidiaris, and assumes the Supreme Court will examine the case in detail.

Kostas Chrysogonos, a constitutional lawyer and former EU parliamentarian for Greece's left-wing Syriza party, also believes action must be taken. "The election result can be challenged up to two weeks after the vote, with the aim of declaring the new party's electoral success null and void," he told the TV channel Skai.

However, the lawyer added that anyone challenging the election must also be able to prove that Kasidiaris is secretly acting as party leader, and is the one pulling the strings. It's not enough simply to point out that he called on people to vote for the Spartans.

Politics 'in the fear of God'

Unlike Golden Dawn, the ultra-Orthodox Niki party is not the type to use gangs of thugs. Party leader Dimitrios Natsios — a teacher, theologian, writer and reserve officer — came across as almost timid at his first press conference on Sunday evening, following Niki's election success. The statement he made left many questions unanswered: "We will fight in the fear of God for the victory of Hellenism," the political newcomer declared.

Professor Georgiadou explains that the party has a much more pronounced religious character than other conservative groups. "Apparently, Niki maintains relations with monastic communities and religiously motivated organizations, even outside the official Orthodox Church," she says. On its website, the ultrareligious group argues in favor of "reacquainting ourselves with the wealth of our ancestors' ideas" and protests against the influence of "neo-Ottoman Turkey" in the Balkans. Only Orthodoxy, it claims, is capable of standing its ground.

Founded just four years ago, Niki was known as a party of protest against the so-called Prespa Agreement of 2018, which settled the long-standing name dispute between Greece and North Macedonia. Left-leaning politicians were in power in both Athens and Skopje at the time, and in both countries the conservative opposition raged against the compromise.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, then head of the Greek opposition, now prime minister, performed a diplomatic balancing act. He declared that he rejected the compromise in the name dispute, but that as the agreement was binding he would not attempt to change it, even if he became head of government.

In the analysis of the Athens political scientist Georgiadou, this context made it possible for a protest party like Niki to attract and retain core conservative voters.

'Greek Solution' in parliament

The Elliniki Lisi (Greek Solution) also benefited from the protests against the Prespa agreement. In early 2018, when these were at their height, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Athens and Thessaloniki against the impending compromise over the name dispute. Kyriakos Velopoulos, the leader of Elliniki Lisi, gave a radical interpretation of events: The Americans, he said, were trying to establish a protectorate in Skopje to keep Russian interests at bay. Greece should oppose this, he declared, and should seek a common border with Serbia.

Asked by a journalist whether he was really calling for war, the right-wing populist replied: "Of course not — economic war is also an option."

The answer is typical of Velopoulos — one is never really sure whether he means what he says. A historian, his political career actually began in the Socialist Youth. However, he soon switched allegiance to the right-wing nationalist coalition movement, LAOS. Velopoulos made his money primarily as a telemarketer of healing ointments and religious writings, with a range that included supposedly original letters from Jesus Christ himself.

Velopoulos founded his own party, The Greek Solution, in 2016. He has been in nonstop attack mode ever since, against perceived enemies at home and abroad — and voters keep rewarding him for this.

He appeared combative once again on election night, setting the tone for the coming legislative period. "They're waging war against us," he declared. "I wasn't allowed to appear on state television at all. But we showed them. We're in parliament — we did it, for a fourth time, and we'll do it 40 times more."

This article has been translated from German.