Greece’s Top Court Bars Jailed Far-Right Politician from Election

Ilias Kasidiaris addresses a press conference in Athens when he was a Golden Dawn lawmaker in October 2013. Photo: EPA/ALKIS KONSTANTINIDIS

Kasidiaris is currently serving a 13-year jail sentence for his key role in the far-right wing party Golden Dawn in 2020.

While serving his sentence, he created a new far-right party, the National Party - Greeks.

The Supreme Court banned National Party - Greeks from the first round of Greek parliamentary elections on May 21.

Its decision was based on a legal amendment passed by the Greek parliament in February that excludes parties whose leaders have been convicted of serious crimes from elections.

Kasidiaris then announced he would stand as an independent as part of the Coalition of Independent Candidates.

But Greek media reported that the Supreme Court judges decided that the Coalition of Independent Candidates was a party formation under Kasidiaris's leadership and barred him again.

Kasidiaris responded by insisting that his party was excluded from the electoral process in an unconstitutional manner.

He announced that he would support a new far-right party called Spartiates (Spartans) in the polls, whose participation has not been prohibited by the Supreme Court.

"After they excluded the Greeks in an unconstitutional way, I will consciously support the Spartans who are eternally and symbolically the Greeks' front line in struggles for freedom," Kasidiaris wrote on Twitter.

Kasidiaris's lawyer Vaso Pantazi told Greek media, the Spartans are a "patriotic" and nationalist party.

"The Spartans party essentially stands for the epitome of constitutional patriotism, for a free, strong, economically powerful and socially just Greece," said Charalambos Katsivardas...