Opposition parties react to convicted Golden Dawn leader’s planned political comeback

PASOK: ‘Democracy knows how to protect itself’

Speaking to Parapolitika, PASOK press spokesperson Kostas Tsoukalas said that ‘these issues have been settled by Supreme Court decisions, which have ruled that someone convicted of such offences cannot be the de facto or formal leader of a party. Democracy knows how to protect itself. This is not a question of what beliefs someone holds. These are ideas that become violence.’

He added: ‘We have convictions for very serious criminal offences and, in essence, an expressed intention to overthrow the regime by force. Our position is very clear. Since 2014, our party has maintained, without qualifications, that there must be a united front and that democracy must protect itself.’

SYRIZA: ‘The Kasidiarises of Greece are created by government policies of impoverishment’

‘On the day that Ilias Kasidiaris, convicted of directing a criminal organisation, is released from prison, the government’s justice minister, who according to international indicators has brought Greece below Albania in terms of the judiciary’s dependence on the executive, boasts that the number of people in prison has increased by 50%,’ SYRIZA press and communications spokesperson Giorgos Panagiotopoulos said in a statement.

‘The “Kasidiarises” of Greece are created by the government’s policies of impoverishment,’ he said, adding: ‘Fascism is not an outlet for the justified anger of citizens and desperate young people. The way out lies in restoring the rule of law and dignity in people’s lives. Only in this way will the black be covered by the colour of dreams.’

KKE: ‘Fascism is a “child” of this rotten exploitative system’

‘Kasidiaris’s release, which follows the release of almost the entire leadership of the criminal organisation, is a provocation against the victims of Golden Dawn and their families, and against the working people who demanded and fought for its conviction,’ the KKE said in a statement.

It continued:

‘Equally provocative, however, are the crocodile tears of the parties of the system, which supposedly express concern and anxiety over this development. Both the Mitsotakis government and the previous Tsipras government bear responsibility for the enormous delays in the trial, which was completed after 11 years and without a final and irrevocable judgment, something the criminal Kasidiaris can exploit in an attempt to stand in the next elections.

‘Moreover, even the legislative framework introduced by the New Democracy government, supposedly to prevent this possibility, is governed by the theory of the “two extremes” and the criminalisation of radicalism, with the substantial support of the other parties, since ultimately it turns against the working-class and popular movement.’

The KKE added:

‘All bourgeois parties consciously conceal the fact that fascism is a “child” of this rotten exploitative system. The re-emergence of fascism today is not accidental, since its nationalist and racist poison is necessary, under conditions of war preparations and involvement, to construct false dilemmas and entrap the people under foreign flags and the interests of the ruling class.

‘They present the strengthening of the “rule of law” as an answer to the rise of fascism, when it is “obvious” that the state, governments and judiciary tolerated Golden Dawn’s activities and coexisted with it on the parliamentary benches until the murder of Pavlos Fyssas.

‘The criminal Golden Dawn “secured” lighter sentences under the new penal codes introduced by the then SYRIZA government, almost immediate releases for the vast majority of its members, favourable treatment through repeated prison leave and, in Kasidiaris’s case, the possibility of serving his sentence in half the time, while he was repeatedly given prison work of a kind that is difficult for other inmates to obtain in overcrowded prisons.

‘All of them, the government and the parties of the convenient opposition, defend the EU’s “rule of law”, which has at its core the unacceptable theory of the two extremes and, on the one hand, rehabilitates Nazi collaborators while, on the other, tearing down communist symbols and banning communist parties and youth organisations. It is the same EU that criminalises radical thought and action and unleashes a new “witch-hunt” through mass preventive surveillance and repression.’

The KKE concluded:

‘It is becoming even more obvious that fascism cannot be confronted through supposedly progressive governments of the system, through laws and court decisions, or through the defence of a “rule of law” that incubates the serpent’s egg whenever it needs it. After all, the rise of far-right populism in Germany and other countries confirms that the path for these forces is opened by the bourgeois state and anti-popular bourgeois parties, allowing a genuine “child” of this system to appear in the guise of being “anti-system”.

‘Only the workers’ and people’s movement, through organised struggle and with contemporary needs as its banner, can pave the way for the overthrow of this system and definitively rid itself of all the rot it produces.

‘It can pave the way for the overthrow of this system and for socialism-communism, which has proved in practice that it can crush the monster of fascism, by planting the red flag with the hammer and sickle in Berlin, at the heart of the Reichstag.’

New Left: ‘Nazis may hide behind new names, symbols and electoral vehicles, but the ideological core remains unchanged’

New Left also attacked the government while condemning the attempt by the convicted Golden Dawn figure to return to the political scene.

In its statement, the party said:

‘Today, Ilias Kasidiaris, convicted of leading the Nazi criminal organisation Golden Dawn, was released from prison. Shortly before his release, he brazenly announced his return to the “main political scene”.

‘Kasidiaris’s release in no way amounts to his political acquittal, nor will it consign Golden Dawn’s criminal actions to oblivion. The history of the Nazi criminal organisation and its leaders will not be forgotten, whatever “costumes” they choose to wear.

‘Ilias Kasidiaris’s attempt to return to politics confirms that we are not rid of the far right. Nazis may hide behind new names, symbols and electoral vehicles, but the ideological core of racism, authoritarianism, violence and nationalism remains unchanged.

‘At the same time, the Mitsotakis government watches the resurgence of Kasidiaris and his abhorrent positions while washing its hands of responsibility. On the one hand, it reduces the issue to a matter of legal manoeuvring. On the other, it adopts the language and agenda of the far right and politically and rhetorically cultivates the ground on which the Nazis are attempting to return. It is also exploiting rivalries within the far right in the hope of limiting its own electoral losses.

‘No legitimisation, no “whitewashing”, no normalisation of the Nazis. The Left has always stood against the far right and will continue to fight to prevent its inhuman ideas from spreading. Every democratic force has an obligation to help build a wall against Kasidiaris and those who openly or covertly harbour nostalgia for Hitler.

‘New Left, standing alongside society, will fight the far right with the ideals of equality, freedom and democracy. And it will wage this struggle everywhere: in institutions, in neighbourhoods and in social struggles.’

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