Arrests, loss of MPs unravel Greece's Golden Dawn

Arrests, loss of MPs unravel Greece's Golden Dawn

Extremists face prosecution as the party's popularity takes a sharp dive.

The Golden Dawn party slipped to fifth place in recent popularity polls. [AFP]

Its leaders arrested on charges of running a criminal organisation, Greece's neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is reeling after one of its lawmakers quit and another was ejected, and finds itself competing with a new populist party for voter support.

The loss of MP Chrysovalantis Alexopoulos, who resigned after he said he was unaware of the party's "criminal activities," and colleague Stathis Boukaras, who was booted, left Golden Dawn with 16 lawmakers in the 300-member parliament.

Its leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, is in detention with four other Golden Dawn lawmakers and half the party's MPs have been arrested as the government is seeking to strip the rest of immunity so they can be prosecuted.

Even as the government tries to dismantle the party, Golden Dawn, after falling in popularity last September when one of its members was charged with murdering an anti-fascist hip-hop artist, had remained a steadfast third in polls behind the ruling New Democracy Conservatives of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his coalition partner, the PASOK Socialists.

But with May elections looming for Greek municipalities and the European Parliament, a new anti-politician party To Potami (The River) jumped into third in recent polls, with Golden Dawn trailing the opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).

After first finding influence on the back of an anti-immigrant stance and opposition to austerity measures, the neo-Nazi party is fading as quickly as it rose.

"It is the beginning of their decrease in...