Greek voters propel new far-right Spartans group
into parliament
Kyriakos Mitsotakis of centre-right New Democracy
party wins second term as prime minister but unheard-of group delivers shock
Helena
Smith in Athens
Mon 26 Jun
2023 19.31 BST
Greece’s
general election has propelled a far-right group called the Spartans, a
previously unheard-of political force, into the Athens parliament with the help
of an imprisoned, neo-Nazi leader of the now-disbanded Golden Dawn party.
While the
centre-right politician Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won a second term as prime
minister, the Spartans have emerged as the fifth biggest group in the 300-seat
parliament.
With 4.7 %
of the vote, it was the Spartans who could claim real victory in a bloc of
unabashed neo-fascists, religious fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists
catapulted into parliament with two similarly minded far-right groups: Greek
Solution and Niki.
For
Greece’s president, it was a turn of events that warranted comment on Monday:
“I think the composition of the new, eight-party parliament will give rise to
many challenges … which we will all live together,” said Katerina
Sakellaropoulou as she met Mitsotakis to hand him a mandate to form a
government. “I wish the best for the country.”
It is not
only Greece’s political establishment that has been blindsided by the outcome of
the general election.
The ascent
of the far right – in a country where memories of Golden Dawn have yet to fade
despite the imprisonment of the now defunct organisation’s leader, Ilias
Kasidiaris – has sent a shudder through the media and, undoubtedly, parts of
the judiciary, which earlier this year prevented Kasidiaris’s hate-mongering
party, Hellenes, participating in the national vote.
“The
elections have produced the ‘darkest’ result of the last half-century,” wrote
the leftist newspaper Syntakon, describing the 25 June poll as the grimmest day
since the restoration of democracy in 1974 after the collapse of military rule.
Mitsotakis’s
New Democracy party, it lamented, had not only won with a record-high margin
over the leftist opposition – cumulatively, the three far-right parties
garnered close to 13% of the vote, a share that gives them 34 seats in
parliament. The Spartans will be represented by 12 MPs.
Economic
uncertainty, Greece’s pro-Nato stance in the war in Ukraine, lingering anger
over the Macedonia name deal, frustration over immigration and growing
anti-westernism have provided fertile ground for the return of the populist
radical right in Greece.
The gap
left by Golden Dawn after its entire leadership was sentenced to long jail
terms at the end of a marathon trial was waiting to be filled.
Just as the
extremist group exploited fury over austerity policies demanded by Greece’s
creditors during its debt crisis, the renascent right has been able to tap into
anger over soaring prices.
Sunday’s
race was the first to be contested by the Spartans, a group that had no
campaign programme, let alone a party headquarters.
Both Greek
Solution and the newly formed Niki had run in inconclusive elections in May,
where Mitsotakis failed to win an outright majority.
But despite
their lack of apparent preparedness, the Spartans were backed by more than
240,000 Greeks at the ballot box, with the party’s leader, Vassilis Stigas, in
his first public statement, thanking Kasidiaris profusely for providing “the
fuel” for the party to do so well.
Like the
anti-abortion, profoundly religious Niki, which rallied the Greek Orthodox
church to win support in the villages and small towns of Balkan northern
Greece, the extremist party was supported by young and old nationwide.
The
backlash against leftwing Syriza, which saw its support drop to under 18 % –
levels not seen since 2012 – has also played a role in the right’s reanimation,
analysts believe.
“What we
are seeing is the rebirth of Golden Dawn through a Trojan horse called The
Spartans,” said the leftwing writer, Dimitris Psarras, whose dogged
investigations played a central role in uncovering Golden Dawn’s dark ideology
and embrace of violence.
“Six of the
Spartans’ 12 MPs were in Kasidiaris’s Hellenes. Rhetorically and ideologically,
it is a carbon copy of racist, anti-immigrant Golden Dawn but whether it is as
violent, or will set up hit squads, has yet to be seen. They are a work in
progress, organising themselves as we speak.”
With the
benefit of hindsight, the crackdown on Kasidiaris, who tweeted jubilantly about
the Spartans’ victory, had been utterly counterproductive, said Psarras.
“For three
months, there was blanket media coverage about him and the Hellenes. It
was the best advertisement he could have had.”
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