Greece: Athens to oust neo-Nazi Golden Dawn ahead of elections

Ahead of the May 21 parliamentary elections in Greece, justice on Tuesday decided to remove from the ballot the political party founded by Ilias Cassidiaris, the former leader of the Golden Dawn neo-Nazi group, who is serving a harsh prison term.

According to the chairman of this institution, Altana Kokovu, by an overwhelming majority of 9 judges to 1, the Supreme Court banned the far-right Hellenes party from standing in the elections. According to a court source, the judges considered this formation “a continuation of the Golden Dawn.”

Ilias Cassidiaris, a former neo-Nazi party spokesman now behind bars, will also not be able to run as a candidate, which he sought. From his prison cell, this former Golden Dawn MP from 2012 to 2019 recently announced his intention to run for MP in the Athens Central Constituency.

Amendments to the blocking of “Greeks”

In February, Parliament blocked the Hellenes by passing amendments to the 2021 election law that provide that a political party cannot run in elections if its leadership, official or unofficial, is convicted of belonging to a criminal organization. Then the Supreme Court had the last word.

Government spokesman Akis Skertsos hailed the “historic decision” to keep “enemies of democracy” out of parliament. “Our duty to all of us is to defend democracy,” he reasoned when, for the first time since the restoration of democracy in 1974, Greece banned a party from the election race.

Small far-right EAN party gets green light

The lawyer for Ilias Cassidiaris, who created the training a few months before it was concluded in October 2020, challenged the decision. “Half a million Greeks are deprived of the right to vote for the party of their choice,” Vasso Pantazi assured. On the other hand, another small far-right party, EAN, got the green light to run in the elections.

After a lengthy trial in October 2020 of 67 Golden Dawn leaders, executives and supporters, 42-year-old Ilias Cassidiaris, aggressive, negative and racist, was sentenced to 13 and a half years in prison for membership in a “criminal organization”. .

Golden Dawn, whose election results in the midst of the financial crisis alarmed Europe, was implicated in the 2013 murder of anti-racist rapper Pavlos Fissas and other acts of violence. This crime is now being considered on appeal. Four years after their expulsion from parliament, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis wanted to avoid the return of neo-Nazis to parliament at all costs.

Prison messages broadcast on YouTube

Because, despite his imprisonment in a maximum security prison, Ilias Cassidiaris continued his political activities. From his mobile, he regularly reaches out to his supporters via voice messages broadcast on his YouTube channel, which has over 135,000 subscribers. According to an Open TV poll on Friday, his party will receive 4% of the vote in the next election, above the 3% threshold set for Vouli.

Radical left Syriza, Alexis Tsipras’s main opposition party, expressed doubts about a possible ban during the vote for the amendment. He said he feared that such a ban would “give a significant boost” to the neo-Nazi movement, suggesting that the right could restore votes for the far right. Alexis Tsipras nonetheless assured on Tuesday that “neo-Nazis should be in jail.”

Sympathy for the Third Reich

The name of Cassidiaris is associated with anti-Semitic denunciations, nationalist outrages, anti-systemic kicks and outbreaks of violence. During a television program in 2012, he punched a communist MP and splashed a glass of water in the face of an elected SYRIZA official.

Ilias Cassidiaris shows his sympathy for the Third Reich: he has a swastika tattooed on his left arm. In 2012, amid the social upheavals associated with the financial crisis in Greece, loss of trust in institutions and discrediting of the main political parties, the Golden Dawn sensationally entered parliament with 18 deputies.