Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Greek election results

The results of the election are as follows.

158 - New Democracy (Christian Democrat)
86 - Syriza (Socialist)
22 - Movement for Change (Social Democratic)
15 - Communist (Communist)
10 - Greek Solution (Neo Nationalist)
9 - MeRA25 (Progressive)
0 - Golden Dawn (openly NAZI)

As such, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the ND leader, has been sworn in as the new Prime Minister with a majority government.

One big question is that of relations with the recently renamed North Macedonia. Mitsotakis opposed the deal which saw the name change in return for Greece dropping its opposition to North Macedonia joining NATO. Mitsotakis, however, says that a deal is a deal, and that despite his opinion that this was a bad deal, it's been signed and he will honour it.

The big news is Golden Dawn falling below the threshold. Golden Dawn always was apart from other Neo Nationalist movements in Europe such as France's National Front (now the National Rally), or Italy's Lega Nord, or Germany's AfD, or the Swedish Democrats. Golden Dawn openly used NAZI-like symbolism, and had a NAZI-like ethos. They are now replaced in the Parliament by the Greek Solution, a Neo Nationalist party.

The shift in seats is also not as drastic as it may seem. Greece awards the winning party with 50 additional seats to help them obtain a stable Majority. Removing that brings ND down to 108 seats, compared to Syriza's 86. Removing the bonus 50 seats from the previous election has Syriza on 95 seats vs ND on 75. While both parties gained a dozen seats, the swing between them was only of about 20 or so seats.

While the defeat of Golden Dawn is a good thing for anyone opposed to totalitarian racist fascism, it should be remembered that the original NAZI party also had a lull, going from 32 seats in 1924 to 12 in 1928 before returning to 107 seats in 1930.

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