A decision to disqualify a far-right group from participating in Greece’s forthcoming general election was taken in the interests of safeguarding democracy, the country’s supreme court has said.
The nation’s highest legal body said the extremist Hellenes party was clearly “the successor” of the now defunct Golden Dawn, whose neo-Nazi leaders are serving jail terms for crimes ranging from murder to assault.
“The aim of the accused, Ilias Kasidiaris, was to reappear once again on the political scene,” the justices wrote in a 400-page explication of the ruling, extracts of which were published on Thursday. “He founded the new party as the successor and continuation of … the criminal organisation Golden Dawn with himself [appointed] as the real leader.”
Nine out of 10 supreme court judges agreed to ban Hellenes, essentially upholding legal amendments voted through the Greek parliament earlier this year. MPs who backed blocking the far-right force from fielding candidates in the 21 May poll did so citing its leader’s criminal conviction.
Explaining the court’s decision, the justices singled out Kasidiaris’s predilection for violence and embrace of “racist and intolerant ideas”, arguing his policies not only “do not respect democracy” but were aimed, ultimately, at dismantling the democratic state and institutions of rule of law.
The 42-year-old Holocaust denier, a Golden Dawn leader who formed the Hellenes before being jailed in October 2020 for his role in the former party, has regularly used social media to address supporters from prison and wasted no time announcing his next move after the court ruling.
In statements posted on Twitter he vowed to take the case to the European court of human rights, saying the judgment had denied hundreds of thousands of Greek citizens their democratic right.
“Today, the first independent evidence was released proving that the supreme court’s unconstitutional decision was premeditated, politically dictated and written long before the court was in session,” said Kasidiaris who was sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in prison. “The struggle of the Hellenes for the homeland and democracy will go all the way to the end.”
The election, held under a system of proportional representation, is unlikely to result in any party winning outright, with a second ballot likely on 2 July.
In a polarised atmosphere following the centre-right government’s handling of a deadly train crash in February, it is smaller, anti-systemic parties that are picking up support in the polls, with Hellenes projected to garner as much as 4.5% – enough to have crossed the 3% threshold into parliament.
“The far-right in this country has not disappeared because Golden Dawn’s leaders were convicted and imprisoned,” said Prof Vasiliki Georgiadou, a specialist in far-right militancy at Panteion University. “Nor will it disappear.”
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The administration of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, welcomed “the historic decision”.
But in a country where the communist KKE party was outlawed for decades on the heels of bloody civil war, the move – the first since 1974 when democracy was restored with the collapse of military rule – is not without controversy.
Many on the left believe the ban will only strengthen the extremists. Critics have been quick to recall the rebound of Golden Dawn when the party polled at 9.3% in European elections barely a year after its key people were arrested following the brutal murder of an anti-fascist Greek rapper in 2013.
“The Hellenes are not in the tradition of the populist radical right. They openly want to bring down the system,” Georgiadou added. “Everyone knew Kasidiaris wanted the party to run in these elections. The ban could have been handled better and decided long before the electoral campaign began.”
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