Golden Dawn rears its head in local polls, prompting rethink from main parties
The first round of local elections on Sunday reinforced the belief that the threat of Golden Dawn to Greece’s political system has not disappeared and it has forced the mainstream parties to come up with new ways of tackling the matter.
The Neo-Nazi party had a particularly strong presence in Athens, where spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris got more than 16% of the votes in the first round of the mayoral race. His fellow MP Ilias Panagiotaros grabbed just over 11% in the contest for the Attica governorship.
In the municipal elections, there were several electoral precincts where Golden Dawn got close to or more than 20% of the vote, making Kasidiaris the leading candidate at those centres. Golden Dawn was the leading party in 11 of the 58 precincts in Athens. Panagiotaros was also the leading candidate in a handful of polling centres in the regional vote.
In Thessaloniki, Golden Dawn’s candidate drew close to 8% of the votes, which is still higher than the 6.9% the party received in the June 2012 parliamentary elections. In the region of Central Macedonia, the party’s hopeful took almost 9%. The far right party also received about 9% in Central Greece and the Peloponnese.
In total, around 450,000 Greeks voted for Golden Dawn in the regional vote, which is similar to the amount of votes the party received in June 2012.
In Athens, the party elected four candidates to the municipal council considering that Golden Dawn’s breakthrough moment in Greek politics came in 2010 when it elected just one councillor in Athens - party leader Nikos Michaloliakos, who is now in pre-trial custody on charges of forming a criminal organisation.
Sunday’s results show that voters have not been deterred by the charges against Michaloliakos and the party’s MP, which were levelled in the wake of rapper Pavlos Fyssas being murdered by a Golden Dawn member last September. It also underlines that after a relative lull in its activity and presence earlier this year, the extremist party is not set to disappear from the political scene.
The question now is how Golden Dawn will attempt to capitalise politically on the support it received. With its leadership awaiting trial, it is not clear what room for manoeuvre the party has. The ball, therefore, is very much in the court of the mainstream parties as they face the challenge of convincing the pool of voters that has stayed loyal to Golden Dawn to change their minds.
Until recently, New Democracy followed the tactic of trying to appeal to the far right party’s supporters by adopting a hardline approach on certain issues, such as immigration. It is clear that this approach has failed. It was noticeable that on election night New Democracy officials, including Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis (a former MP with ultranationalist LAOS) adopted a less conciliatory tone towards Golden Dawn supporters, stressing that Greeks could no longer claim to have been unaware of what the party stands for, as many had done in 2012.
This represents a significant change in direction by the conservative party but it remains to be seen if this translates into a concerted effort of shaming voters into not voting for Golden Dawn in the European Parliament elections.
SYRIZA, on the other hand, appears to have toned down its rhetoric on Golden Dawn supporters. “It is obvious that 15% of Athenians are not Nazis,” said the leftist party’s candidate for the Athens mayorship, Gavriil Sakellaridis. “Every vote that is taken away from Golden Dawn is a positive thing for democracy,” said SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis.
The implication is that SYRIZA will try to target some of the voters who backed the extremist party out of frustration with the state of the economy or due to anger at the political establishment rather than because they hold Neo-Nazi views. The opposition party seems to believe it can convince them that backing SYRIZA is a more effective way of addressing these concerns.
The fact, though, that backing for Golden Dawn remains at significant levels despite the revelations about the party’s action may suggest that much of this support is not just a reaction to the current economic difficulties. Instead, there is cause to believe that it has deeper ideological roots. It should not be forgotten that in the last 90 years Greece has had two far-right dictatorships, a civil war and a monarchy that was deposed. If support for Golden Dawn proves to be more than superficial, New Democracy and SYRIZA have their work cut out swaying voters. (Macropolis.gr)