In September, the far-right political party Spartiates (Spartans) received €788,067.18 in state funding, despite being barred from running in the European elections.
Today in parliament, PASOK MP Panagiotis Doudonis questioned the Minister of the Interior regarding why the funding was allocated to the Spartiates and called for its suspension. He highlighted that the party had previously been given €59,998.58 and €25,898 in election funding for the European elections in which they didn’t participate.
The Spartiates were prohibited from running in the European Parliament elections this spring by the relevant Supreme Court division due to criminal charges against 11 of the party’s MPs.
A Supreme Court prosecutor had ordered that charges be brought against the 11 lawmakers on suspicion of deceiving voters in the June 2023 national election by secretly taking guidance from a jailed politician. A final decision on these charges has yet to be made.
The jailed politician in question is Ilias Kasidiaris, convicted for his part in Golden Dawn—the neo-Nazi political party found guilty of murder and racist violence across Athens. Kasidiaris later founded the nationalist Hellenes party and even ran from inside Greece’s Domokos prison. However, the Hellenes were banned from May’s national elections due to Kasidiaris’ criminal record.
Kasidiaris then endorsed the Spartiates in the June elections, and the party went from being essentially unknown to garnering 12% of the vote and thirteen seats. Most of the MPs have since left the party and now sit in parliament as independents.
Last year, PASOK had proposed an amendment to suspend the Spartiates’ state funding. Today, PASOK president Nikos Androulakis reaffirmed their position, stating, “PASOK is re-submitting the amendment to immediately suspend funding for a party whose real leader, according to the Supreme Court, is a convicted criminal.”
