Far-right parties won almost 13% of the national vote in Greece’s countrywide elections over the weekend, in what experts warn could be the most significant in a recent string of victories for similar groups across Europe.
While the ruling center-right New Democracy Party won a landslide victory, with 40.5% of the vote, its triumph was overshadowed by the success of the Spartans, a recently formed far-right nativist group that gained 12 seats in Greece’s 300-seat Parliament.
Widely seen as a direct descendant of the outlawed neo-Nazi Golden Dawn group, which was declared a criminal organization in 2020, the Spartans were enthusiastically endorsed by Ilias Kasidiaris, a former Golden Dawn lawmaker.
Kasidiaris tweeted his support and congratulations from prison, where he is serving a 13-year sentence for his part in Golden Dawn’s criminality, which included acts of violence against migrants and political rivals.
Marta Lorimer, an expert in far-right politics in Europe at the London School of Economics, said that the success of the radical right in Greece and elsewhere has had a profound political effect: it has made traditionally moderate center-right parties more extreme.
“The main challenge is that you have a center right that’s copying the messaging of the far right. The prime minister can now say that the election results show people want more far-right policies,” she said.
“It’s true that these parties are doing better than before, but for me it’s more the case that the people in the middle might see this [far-right extremism] as helpful. To me that’s more worrying.”
On the question of a European wave of far-right tendencies, Georgios Samaras, an expert in Greek politics and political economy at Kings College, London, pointed out that some of Greece’s radical parties would be banned in Germany, where the use of extremist symbols, including the swastika, is outlawed. And very few movements, of any persuasion, would survive their biggest party being declared a criminal enterprise, he said.
“That is why Greece stands out: neo-Nazis are re-emerging into politics after the leaders were convicted [for being part of a] right-wing criminal organization,” Samaras said.
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