World News | Jailed Leader of Greek Far-right Party Faces Election Ban
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Greece's government is seeking to ban a far-right political party led by a jailed former lawmaker from participating in a general election later this year, with a legislative initiative that has gained cross-party support.
Athens, Feb 3 (AP) Greece's government is seeking to ban a far-right political party led by a jailed former lawmaker from participating in a general election later this year, with a legislative initiative that has gained cross-party support.
Ilias Kasidiaris, 42, founded the Greek National Party two years ago. He is currently serving a sentence of 13 years and six months in prison for membership in a criminal organisation as a former leading member of Golden Dawn, a political party of neo-Nazi origins linked to multiple violent street attacks.
Also Read | China Scuttles Pakistan's Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project Over Delayed Payments.
Parliament on Friday published a proposed legal amendment that would disqualify Kasidiaris' party from election participation on the grounds that its leader has been convicted of serious offences and that the party wouldn't “serve the free functioning of (Greece's) democratic constitution.”
Lawmakers are due to vote on the amendment on Tuesday.
Also Read | Bangladesh: LPG Price Hiked by 22.15 Taka per Kg to 124.85 Taka, Announce BERC.
Opposition parties are supportive of the ban, but the Greek Communist Party described the criteria in the amendment as being too broad and open to abuse for political purposes.
Golden Dawn was represented in parliament between 2012 and 2019 following four consecutive elections held during a major financial crisis.
In 2020, a court jailed Kasidiaris and other members of the party's leadership for heading a criminal organisation that waged a campaign of violence against migrants and ideological opponents.
“Democracies have a moral obligation to guard against their enemies,” center-right Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told members of his Cabinet on Thursday.
“They cannot legitimise and certainly cannot fund organisations that openly work to undermine them.”
Before a general election expected in April, opinion polls suggest the Greek National Party would cross the 3 per cent threshold of the national vote needed to gain parliamentary representation.
In a phone message from a prison in central Greece that was posted online, Kasidiaris called the legal amendment “undemocratic.”(AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)