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2023 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

8. What Are the Far Right MPs Like? Radical and Extreme Right Parties in the Greek Parliament

Author : Constantinos Pierides

Published in: Parliamentary Elites in Transition

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on the special characteristics and the profile of the far right Greek MPs elected between 2007 and 2019 with radical or extreme parties. The chapter will analyze 131 cases of MPs elected with four (LAOS, ANEL, Golden Dawn, Greek Solution) radical or extreme Right parties throughout this period during six parliamentary compositions. Our aim is: firstly, to create a typology for the four parties under examination; secondly, to examine their sociodemographic and political characteristics and thirdly to examine inner divisions between the far right parties. Our argument that lies behind this analysis is that far right MPs can be treated as a distinctive political group, yet with a significant inner division. Finally, we evaluate whether the political context of anti-systemic parties, shapes in a critical way the type of politicians that win a seat in the Greek Parliament.

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previous chapter From an Outsider to a Mainstream Party. The Parliamentary Elite of SYRIZA as an Indicator of Party Transformation

next chapter The Rise of Technocrats in Greek Ministerial Elites: Evidence from 1989 to 2021

The trisected periodization of the Greek Metapolitefsi was introduced by Christoforos Vernardakis (2011).

There is an ongoing discussion on whether the Metapolitefsi era has ended; Among those who argue in favor of an end they locate it around the year of 2010 with the signing of the Greek Memorandum Programme and the initiation of the debt crisis (Tsoukalas, 2012; Voulgaris, 2013).

The term ‘far right’ includes a broad range of parties and groups that differ in economic and welfare policies as well as the extent to which they support or even employ violence. According to Halikiopoulou the far right umbrella includes parties that share an important commonality: they all justify a broad range of policy positions on socioeconomic issues on the basis of nationalism (Halikiopoulou, 2018).

In the 1977 national elections the party “Νational Faction” received 6.82% of the total votes, electing 5 MPs. The party was dismantled before the 1981 elections due to strong disagreements on the issue of the election of the President of the Republic and most party members joined New Democracy. The party “National political Union” (EPEN) emerged as the first political organization of pro-military junta supporters with the imprisoned dictator Papadopoulos being the first president. The party received 2.4% of the total votes in the 1984 European elections, electing one MP in Strasbourg (Georgiadou, 2019).

The National Eurosceptic profile of the party “Political Spring” (Verney, 2011) in the early 1990s might arise implications on whether that was a case of a far right party that managed to gain parliamentary representation. Yet, due to the: (a) predominantly conservative party positions, apart from the Macedonia naming dispute and (b) the few seats won (11 in the 1993 elections and none henceforth), we decided to exclude this party from our analysis.

In terms of the variables used in this chapter we chose to analyze: (1) gender, (2) age group, (3) size of constituency and relations with constituencies, (4) educational level, (5) profession and (6) the noted changes during each parliamentary term in order to examine the inner-party cohesion.

“Karatzaferis initially gathered under the umbrella of LAOS the principal players of the far right bloc -the anti-Semitic milieu of K. Plevris and the ‘Forefront’, the conspiracy theories party of Hellenism of S. Sofianopoulos, as well as, the neonazi Golden Dawn of N. Michaloliakos” (Georgiadou, 2019, p. 153).

The relationship between SYRIZA and ANEL had been mildly strained throughout the course of the coalition due to progressive government initiatives in areas such as the rights of the LGBT community (e.g. civil unions for gay couples) or citizenship rights for second-generation immigrants. ANEL had refused to vote for these government bills in parliament, knowing that they would pass with the vote of socially progressive MPs from non-government parties. The reality was that once the issue of the bailout deal with Greece’s foreign creditors lost its salience, the coalition between SYRIZA and ANEL lost its central political raison d’être apart from the political ambitions of Kammenos (Tsatsanis et al., 2020, p. 5).

On 13 January 2019, the leader of ANEL and Defence Minister Panos Kammenos withdrew the party from Greece’s ruling coalition over a deal struck on the Macedonia name dispute, potentially leaving the governing coalition without a workable majority in parliament. However, the government was able to survive the confidence vote thanks to some ANEL dissidents.

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The term ‘native’ is used for an MP elected in the same constituency as his/her origin, while ‘parachuters’ is used for MPs elected in different constituencies from their place of birth (Pedersen et al., 2007).

We need to clarify that historically the composition of the Greek Parliament is characterized by a dominance of male MPs. However, in some parliamentary terms where female representation seems stronger (2012b, 2015a, 2019) far right parties (with the exception of ANEL) are still male dominated.

Eleni Zaroulia, husband of the Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos is the woman with three parliamentary terms. Despoina Sveroni is elected in 2015a and Sotiria Vlachou in 2015b elections.

Whether all elected MPs should deliver an official CV there is a growing tendency of the far right personnel to hide these information and among GD this tendency regards almost every aspect, even mere demographics.

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Title: What Are the Far Right MPs Like? Radical and Extreme Right Parties in the Greek Parliament
Author: Constantinos Pierides
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Parliamentary Elites in Transition
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-11693-3

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-11694-0

Copyright Year: 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11694-0_8