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
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Firstly, we already know that Golden Dawn shares some of the electoral pool with Syriza be
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cause of their common anti-memorandum agenda in previous elections.
•
Secondly, after the U-turn of the previous government with the participation of the far-left Syriza
and the far-right Independent Greeks, Golden Dawn is the only party from the right side which remains
anti-memorandum. It was to be expected that Golden Dawn would increase their votes in these elec
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tions, as people who are from the right side and against the memorandum had no alternative in order
to express their disagreement, while there were also other voters who wanted to express their dissatis
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faction.
•
Finally, just few weeks before these elections, the immigration crisis in Europe, but more pre
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cisely in Greece, and more particularly on some islands such as Lesvos, Kos or Samos, was a means
for Golden Dawn of targeting voters who are against immigration.
It is important to stress that despite the fact that Golden Dawn remained the third biggest party in the
Greek political space, the most important conclusion that can be drawn from these elections is that
Golden Dawn seems to have established a pool of voters (see Table 1).
The sample of national elections, though, does not allow us to make valid conclusions, as there are
four national elections, but all of them took place within a time period of three years during a severe
economic crisis and within an unstable political system. However, Golden Dawn did not manage to
mobilise voters who were dissatisfied from the U-turn of the previous government - instead, they did
not vote at all.
On the one hand, therefore, Golden Dawn did not manage to increase its vote share; on the other
hand, the fact that Golden Dawn seems to have stabilised its electoral power is something that we
should look at in the future.
Table 1: Golden Dawn Electoral Support in National Elections
National Elections
May 2012
June 2012
January 2015
September 2015
Position
6th
5th
3rd
3rd
Vote share (%)
6.97
6.92
6.28
6.99
Votes
440,966
426,025
388,387
379,581
Number of seats
21
18
17
18
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Christos Vrakopoulos is a Ph.D. student at the University of Reading
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