SYRIZA
The Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) coalesced in a golden year for Greece – 2004! It was created as a leftist umbrella group with Synaspismos (Coalition of the Left of Movements and Ecology) being the key component. The party’s leader Alexis Tsipras catapulted to the post of prime minister on January 25 when he was just 40. He began his nascent political activity with the youth wing of the Greek Communist Party (KKE). He promised to end austerity, tear up the bailout agreements, negotiate a debt write-off, offer free electricity to the poor and food stamps at schools so that everyone has free food. Instead, the leftist PM imposed capital controls on bank account holders and signed the third bailout agreement, which his critics claim is the harshest of the lot!
ND
The main opposition New Democracy (ND) party paid for three years of austerity when it was ousted in January despite committing itself to keeping the country in the euro. Its decision to push ahead with plans to secure EU-IMF bailout funds did not sit well with the crippled nation. The party was founded in 1974 by Greek statesman Constantine Karamanlis. Vangelis Meimarakis, a former Parliament president (2012-2014) and minister, took over the helm of the party from former prime minister Antonis Samaras. His popularity has risen thanks to his “common man” personality and very honed political skills, with opinion polls reporting that he’s approached Tsipras to a whisker — something that a month ago was unthinkable.
Potami
Potami (River) is a centrist party formed in 2014 by Stavros Theodorakis. The 51-year-old television current affairs host is aiming for third place in the Sept. 20 election. The party is pro-European and more-or-less insists that the country meet its bailout commitments while drastically reforming the public sector.
GD
The ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party, blasted as a real neo-Nazi threat, emerged from obscurity during the economic crisis in 2012. Party support slumped after the murder of a counter-culture rapper in September 2013, blamed on one of its neighborhood capos, a development which led to the arrest of most of its deputies, including leader Nikos Michaloliakos, on charges of founding and leading a criminal organization. The party is known for violent attacks against migrants and its street “rumbles” with rival far-leftists and self-styled anarchists. The party is currently eyeing third place in the Sept. 20 elections.
PASOK
The Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) is heading into elections with a new leader, Fofi Gennimata. Now a “old guard” social democrat party, it mostly dominated Greek politics after 1981, although it originally sprang up in 1974 as a radicalized center-left moment. George Papandreou, the son of the party founder Andreas Papandreou, was Greek PM during the genesis and height of the eurozone crisis but was forced to quit as PM in November 2011. He was elected in October 2009 after a campaign where his quip, “There is money (to spend)!”, came back to haunt him. Instead, he imposed austerity measures in the face of an unprecedented sovereign debt crisis that witnessed the Greek state’s inability to borrow from the markets, thus relying on European partners’ low-interest loans — along with accompanying loan conditions, i.e. memorandum. The result was his party’s implosion. PASOK was led up until this Spring by Evangelos Venizelos.
ANEL
The right-wing anti-austerity Independent Greeks party (ANEL) is also paying the price of having stood as a junior coalition member with SYRIZA following the Jan. 25 elections. The party is led by Panos Kammenos, who broke off from the ND party. The combative and often bombastic Kammenos has described Greece’s creditors as “foreign conquerors”, amongst others, and stands for conservative values. He’s tough on illegal immigration and a social conservative, and the only thing Kammenos shared with SYRIZA was their anti-memorandum plank — up until the third memorandum was signed.
KKE
The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) had been banned from politics until 1974 but was legalized with the restoration of democracy in 1974. It is considered one of Europe’s most prominent orthodox communist parties. The party has consistently refused to collaborate with other leftist parties.
Popular Unity
The left-wing anti-austerity Popular Unity Party was founded on August 21, 2015, after 25 MPs of SYRIZA split from the party as a result of Alexis Tsipras’ handling of the Greek bailout agreement the same month. The party is led by the former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, former alternate social security minister Dimitris Stratoulis and former alternate national defence minister Costas Isychos. The name of the party was inspired by Unidad Popular, the Chilean political alliance led by Salvador Allende. What does the party want? Withdrawal from the eurozone, tearing up the bailout agreements and reinstating the drachma as Greece’s national currency.
Union of Centrists
The Union of Centrists was founded by Vassilis Leventis in 1992, borrowing the name from the 1960s-era Center Union that was dominant at the time, but without any affiliation to that party. Long a late-night fixture on obscure Athens-area television shows, Leventis was until recently viewed as occupying a far-removed fringe of the Greek political scene. Nevertheless, current polls suggest that the perennial candidate may clear the 3-percent threshold of the general vote required to get his party into Parliament.
ANTARSYA
The radical left ANTRSYA describes itself as a “front of the anti-capitalist, revolutionary, communist left and radical ecology”. It was founded in March 2009 in Athens by 10 organizations and independent militants from various far left-wing groups ranging from internationalists, to Maoists. The party has never made it to Parliament and isn’t expected to succeed this time either.
