Kasidiaris to run in elections with his own far-right party despite government ban
Ilias Kasidiaris, the convicted leader of the now-disbanded neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, will attempt to run in the upcoming elections on May 21 with his own far-right political party. This means that Kasidiaris will not be running under the EAN party of Anastasios Kanellopoulos, a former assistant Supreme Court prosecutor, but rather under the National Party in Athens’ First Electoral District.
The application for his party’s participation in the elections will reportedly be submitted to the Supreme Court later on Wednesday. The National Party will be led by retired major general Dimitrios Chatziliadis, a former teacher at the Hellenic Army Academy, commonly known as the Evelpidon.
The Greek government has taken steps to prevent the National Party from participating in the elections by introducing legislation to ban the party from the election. Kasidiaris stepped down from leading the party in an attempt to circumvent the ban. The government responded with a new amendment to broaden the scope of the ban, and the country’s Supreme Court will make a decision on May 5 on whether the law should be placed on the statute books.
Kasidiaris said that “more than half a million Greeks are currently supporting our party” and that they have a duty to give them a “great political and legal battle until the end.”
