Christos Vrakopoulos
After the announcement of the results of the last Greek national elections on the night of 20th Sep
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tember 2015, despite the fact that Syriza, and more specifically
Alexis Tsipras, won surprisingly easily,
much of the attention was focused on the electoral support for Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn is the third
biggest party of Greece’s party system in the third election in a row (European Parliament Elections
2014, National Elections of January 2015 and of September 2015).
It is very interesting that Golden Dawn in these elections literally did not make a political campaign,
as: firstly, until January 2015, their leaders were in prison; secondly, the media in Greece have banned
Golden Dawn members from their panels as members of other parties refuse to participate in a discus
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sion with its representatives; thirdly, the trial of various Golden Dawn members for the murder of Pav
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los Fyssas is now in process; and last but not least, Nikos Michaloliakos admitted that Golden Dawn
takes the “political responsibility” for the murder of Pavlos Fyssas. The question therefore is: how has
Golden Dawn managed to remain the third biggest party in Greece under these circumstances?
At the same time there were numerous reasons that could lead us to believe that Golden Dawn would
increase their electoral support in these last elections, on the basis of the anti-systemic and protest
voting: