The Greek Supreme Court on Tuesday banned the presentation in the general elections of May 21 of a political party founded by a former executive of the neo-Nazi formation Golden Dawn who is serving a heavy prison sentence, we learned from a judicial source.
Ilias Kassidiaris, former spokesperson for Golden Dawn and leader of the far-right Les Hellènes party, will not be able to stand as a candidate, as he aspired to do, in the election to be held in less than three weeks.
First since the dictatorship
From his prison cell, this former deputy of the neo-Nazi party from 2012 to 2019 had recently announced his intention to run for a seat as a deputy in the Athens center constituency.
The judgment of the assembly of the Supreme Court, announced by its president, Altan Kokovou, was taken with a large majority of 9 against 1 of the magistrates of this institution.
The banning of a party from the elections is the first since the restoration of democracy in Greece in 1974 after the seven-year term of the dictatorship of the colonels, according to experts.
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In February, Parliament blocked the Les Hellènes party by adopting an amendment to the 2021 electoral law, which provides that a political party cannot participate in the elections if its official or unofficial leadership has been convicted of belonging to a criminal organization.
The final decision then rests with the Supreme Court.
Already before this ban, Ilias Kassidiaris, who had created his own training a few months before his imprisonment in October 2020, had denounced "
an unimaginable coup against democracy
" by trying to keep out of the vote "
hundreds of thousands of voters
" of his party.
