Issue #116: Greece's Fractured Left and Surging Far-Right
Meanwhile, New Democracy easily secures a majority
On Sunday, June 25th, voters in Greece went to the polls to elect a parliament. This vote came after the May elections did not produce a majority. I wrote about the May Greek elections here, which you can read for a more detailed state of play for Greek politics. In the May elections, the governing New Democracy Party, part of the center-right, easily won the most votes, securing just under 41%.
The election was a disaster for the left-wing SYRIZA Party, which ruled Greece from 2015 to 2019 but fell to 20% in May. Meanwhile, the left-of-center PASOK party, which used to be the main left-wing party until the 2008 financial crisis killed its popularity, began a slow rebuild in support after spending years in single-digits; getting 11%.
While New Democracy easily won the most votes, it did not have a majority of the seats in parliament. They came close with 146/300. Arguing that a majority government would be best for stability, Prime Minster Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for new elections. The reasoning was simple, a new election would be held under different rules.
The June Election
For decades, Greece used proportional representation along with a win-bonus, which gave the largest party an extra block of seats. When ruling the nation, SYRIZA got rid of the win-bonus. The first election that reform effected was May. However, New Democracy passed a law to bring back a modified win-bonus a few years ago. Greek election laws can only effect the election after next, so the ND reforms didn’t apply for May, but would for a snap election. Hence ND called a vote, believing that they’d get a similar share of the vote and the win-bonus would secure a majority.
The move paid off, as voters gave New Democracy just under 41% again. This time the party has 158/300 seats.
Below is a table showing the vote share and seats for all parties over 1% for May and June. Greek law requires 3% to get seats in parliament. The most notable change for June was more parties got over the threshold.
The success of smaller parties to gain seats ultimately hurt ND’s main challengers. Don’t worry we will talk about these small parties further on in this post.
New Democracy won almost all districts, similar to the May contest. Overall their vote share barely moved across the nation, with only small shifts in most districts.
While New Democracy sits comfortably at the top, the left is divided namely between PASOK, SYRIZA, and the KKE. However, even if the left was united, a united-right still would have taken the vote. If we combine the major and minor parties (in this context I am using anyone who got more than 1%) into right and left camps, the June contests saw right-wing parties get 53% of the vote.
Back in May, the margin between the right and left was closer, with the difference being just 4%. That said, it was still a good night for the right then as well.
Of course this combination assumes all the right and left parties would get along. This is definitely not the case. Many of the smaller left-wing parties are far-left and consider PASOK and SYRIZA sell-outs. On the right, several of these smaller far-right parties would demand major changes from New Democracy to give them support.
The results show that Greece is still in a very different stage of party strength compared to the past. I covered this in my May article, but politics in Greece was seriously upended by the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing Greek debt crisis. SYRIZA initially seemed to have taken the mantle of the leading left-wing party after PASOK collapsed, but now finds itself in major decline.
New Democracy is so far the only major party to emerge from the debt crisis unscathed in the long-term.
The Fractured Left
As I pointed out with my left v right maps, the lack of left-wing unity is not the only problem for that side of the ideological spectrum. That said, any hope for the left to emerge victorious in the future requires its voters to pick a party. Right now SYRIZA and PASOK are aiming to vie for left-wing support.
PASOK was initially thrilled with its rise in support in the May elections, coupled with the fall of SYRIZA. If the June elections had produce PASOK emerging into 2nd place, it could have given them the boost in moral to surge back as the main left-wing party. However, that did not happen. Both parties are stuck in the teens and came in 2nd in a variety of different districts.
Three smaller parties would all be considered part of the far-left. The KKE are the longtime communist party, while Course and MerRA25 are far-left populist parties. KKE have never gotten along with the center-left, while MeRA25 are made up of left-wing members who broke from SYRIZA for its austerity during the debt fight. This is how the combined “far-left” did.
These organizations are not likely to work with the larger left-wing parties. The best goal for PASOK or SYRIZA is to try and win over as many of these voters as they can, but that is hard when those two are fighting each-other.
Rise of the Far-Right
The biggest story out of the Greek elections is the continued rise of the populist far-right parties in Greece. In these contests, three parties met the mantra of far-right. All three have similar ideologies that center on Greek nationalism, religious conservatism, and anti-immigration. These parties favor a hard border wall with Turkey, and oppose the Prespa Agreement.
What is the Prespa Agreement? The agreement was between the nation of Greece and Macedonia, a former Yugoslavian Republic. The whole controversy emerged from the fact that Greek nationalists consider the “Macedonian” heritage to be that of Greece, and hence oppose Macedonia or Macedenonian being used for anything other than Greek history. This was such a serious issue, that for a long time Greece would block Macedeonia membership to NATO and the EU over the name issue. The final agreement had the nation change its name to North Macedonia.
This compromise angered Greek and Macedonian nationalists. In North Macedonia, the ruling Social Democratic party, which pushed the agreement, secured re-election but saw much of the campaign driven by the issue.
I delved deep into the name dispute and the politics around it in this article.
The whole controversy highlights the tinder-box that is ethnic identity in the Balkans. In Greece, the right-wing generally opposed the agreement, but the nationalist parties seethe at it. The nationalist sentiment on this issue is strongest in the north end of the nation, where Macedonian language and cultural identify is strongest.
So sure enough, a party like “Greek Solutions” - a nationalist party - was strongest in the Northern portion of the nation.
Notice that strong support where the Turkish border wall would be….
The VICTORY Party, a similar nationalist and religious conservative party, was strongest in the northern districts as well.
Finally, and most concerning, was the support for the SPARTANS party.
The SPARTANS is a far-right party with direct ties to the outlawed neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn” Party. Golden Dawn, which peaked at 7% in in 2012 amid the financial crisis, was eventually outlawed. Ilias Kasidiaris, a former lawmaker and leader of Golden Dawn, endorsed SPARTANS, which did not contest the May elections and then surged to 4.6% in June.
Ilias Kasidiaris, btw, currently sits in jail with a 13 year sentence. The sentence came as Golden Dawn was dismantled for being a criminal organization that engaged in right-wing paramilitary attacks. SPARTANS is widely seen as a successor to Golden Dawn. It is less religious-conservative and more far-right Neo-Nazi thuggery.
The combined far-right vote was just under 13%, which can be seen combined below.
The strength of the far-right makes it best, as I see it, that New Democracy secured a majority. They will not need to look to the far-right for support on legislation. However, the rise of these parties shows that anti-immigrant sentiment is especially high in the country. Voters support the wall on the Turkish border and celebrate the turning away of migrants boats. The nations shameful actions regarding the recent migrant boat disaster did not hurt New Democracy at all. And yet despite New Democracy being fairly hardline on many issues, the far-right parties still had room to grow.
Concerning to say the least
Conclusions
Right now Greece is in a fluctuating state with its politics, but the right-wing has a clear advantage. The nation has yet to emerge back to a two-dominance-party stability that it saw pre-financial crisis. How the left can unite remains an open question. How much more the far-right can also grow in Greece remains to be seen.