Government focus on the center ground

With a motley concoction of small parties on the far-right of ruling conservatives New Democracy, the government is seeking to assess the reasons that led some 700,000 people to vote the way they did in the recent elections and the political response to lure them back to the center ground. 

According to government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis, the response to the anti-systemic vote will be achieved through the triptych of strengthening the economy and growth, continuing the same “clean line” on national issues, and even more social justice.

The newly created Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family has precisely this objective. Simply put, the government believes that through the policy that will start to unfold in the coming period it will be able to weaken these parties.

This approach rules out scenarios that New Democracy would move legally to block the far-right Spartiates (Spartans) party on the grounds that its real leadership is the jailed Ilias Kasidiaris.

“The Spartiates will be dealt with in the Parliament in parliamentary and political terms,” Marinakis said, reflecting the assessment that the judicial route also carries the risk of increasing anti-systemicism, which is particularly dangerous given the European elections a year from now. Indeed, as the government had already spearheaded constitutional changes to exclude criminal organizations in the previous period, it was considered to have “exhausted the possibilities.” “In the previous period we exhausted every margin given to us by the Constitution and the laws so that criminal organizations or people who have been convicted of such offenses are not given the legal opportunity to be leaders of parties that will then enter the Parliament.” The phrase “We have exhausted the possibilities” clearly indicates that the government is putting the brakes on any such initiative.

But there is another reason why politics was chosen over the court battle. With European elections only a year away, the government considers it particularly important for the country to have serious representation in Brussels. The judicial route could work “backward” and empower such parties, which now rely on “anti-systemicism” much more than nationalism, as was the case in the past. This trend of a “new type” of right wing is prevalent across Europe and has proven to be more difficult than in the past to counter. Consequently, more cautious moves are also needed.