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Anastasia Balezdrova

The Greek Parliament has taken away the immunity of Golden Dawn leader, Nicos Michaloliakos, and MP Christos Pappas and Yiannis Lagos. 244 MPs took part in the roll call vote, with 223 votes in favour of the proposal, and only one abstaining vote, that of independent former New Democracy member Nikos Nikolopoulos. MPs from Golden Dawn did not vote, and neither did their colleagues from the Group of Independent Greeks, who said that the three-month deadline for voting to withdraw parliamentary immunity had expired.

Michaloliakos, Pappas, and Lagos are in Korydallos Prison, after being arrested on alleged charges of being involved and managing a criminal group. The three of them were present at today’s vote in the Greek Parliament after obtaining permission from the prosecutor.

They were transported under extremely tight security measures, the cars entering the court of parliament through the side entrance. Upon entering the parliament building, Michaloliakos shouted at the escorting policeman ‘Leave me alone! Don’t touch me! I am a political leader’. Michaloliakos’ daughter, Urania, who was waiting for him in front of the plenary chamber gave him a hug and shouted “I am the happiest daughter in the world’.

When the three men entered the chamber, MPs and members of Golden Dawn, started shouting the slogan ‘Blood, honour, Golden Gate’. In the speech which followed, Michaloliakos repetated his attacks on the government for their political persecution against Golden Dawn.

Outside the parliament building, supporters of Golden Dawn started a political rally while waiting for the party’s leader. There were about 300 people who held flags and symbols of the organisation, sang Nazi marches with Greek verses and shouted ‘Scoundrels, political traitors’. Nevertheless, their attempt at provocation failed.

The vote which took away the parliamentary immunity of Golden Dawn leaders was held 10 days after the European Parliament elections, on which the party gained more than 10 per cent of Greek votes. As a result, the three members of the organisation were elected for members of the EU Parliament, while their party consolidated its position as the third political power in Greece.

We tried to find out why the support for the party seems not to decline despite the investigation held and the evidence of criminal activity, in our interview with Vasiliki Georgiadou, lecturer in Political Studies at the Pandio University of Athens, who has conducted serious research of the Golden Dawn phenomenon.

Mrs. Georgiadou, how would you explain the popularity of Golden Dawn which has been growing in all elections held so far?

To start with, Greece, especially in the years of prosperity, progress and successful renovation, was among the few European countries which did not have a significant far-right party. This started changing in the years of the crisis, yet, in my opinion, we need to approach the phenomenon as one which affects not only Greece but also most EU countries.

What fostered the phenomenon? It was not merely the crisis, despite the common claim that the progress of Golden Dawn overlaps the period of the economic collapse. Yet, if we look at other EU countries, where far-right parties have become more popular, too, although not as extreme as in our case, we will see that similar formations appeared there in times of prosperity.

Yet, what fostered the power of the European far right in its ideological and political varieties, at least in the period after the 1970s, was the crisis of politics and the political system, the deficit of  political confidence, and the absence of significant figures on the political arena. That was the major reason for the appearance of the far right.

This factor is quite significant in Greece especially if we bear in mind that here the lack of political confidence coincided with the economic crisis. The combined effect of a political and an economic crisis is indeed extremely dangerous and fosters the development of right –wing extremism and populist behaviour in politics in general.

Golden Dawn is not the only example of this phenomenon in Greece. There are also the Independent Greeks, although their potential in the EU Parliamentary elections was limited. Some of the votes they lost were given in support of Golden Dawn.

The answer to your question why the popularity of Golden Dawn is increasing is: because there are still depots of voters from other political spaces neighbouring the organisation, in terms of political geography rather than from the point of view of ideology. Golden Dawn gains its power both from the New Greeks and New Democracy. To sum up, I would say that it gains its strength from the ‘systematic’ part of the political arena in Greece, as it turns out that the party gains strength even from PASOK, and the left-wing space in general. I am referring to the systematic and the governing space, where we still observe ‘leaks of voters’ to Golden Dawn.