Talk:List of political parties in Greece
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[edit] Popular Rally and the far-Right
This is addressed primarily to the individual who deleted my changes regarding the name of the political party and its ideological affinity (but also to clear up the issue in general). In your edit summary you write, "They are not known as LASY (never heard of it, it's not on their website) and they are indeed Far Rightist Populists". However, I believe you to be mistaken where the name of the party is concerned and strongly object to the far-Right characterization on several grounds.
Although you may never have heard of the acronym LA.SY. this does not mean it doesn't exist or has not been used. You say that the term is not on the party's website, but this is not the case. At the official party website you will find a plethora of references to the term "Λαϊκός Συναγερμός" (Popular Rally). (Not only will you find phrases such as "President of Popular Rally Mr. G. Karatzaferis" but there's even an image on the front page in which the term "Popular Rally" is used.) And, just as "ΛΑ.Ο.Σ." (LA.O.S.) is the acronym for the term "Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός" (Popular Orthodox Rally), the natural acronym for "Λαϊκός Συναγερμός" is "ΛΑ.ΣΥ." (LA.SY.). Although I admit that LA.O.S is the most used acronym for the party (probably because it became well-known under this name), Karatzaferis publically admitted and explained the reason for the party's name change in response to the concerns of the members of his party and his voters. Although "Popular Orthodox Rally" has not been completely abandoned, it cannot be said to be the only name for the party. Thus, two separate names exist for this political party and this should be reflected (until, at least, one of the two wins out). Also, I have seen the acronym LA.SY. used in at least one Greek newspaper.
As for the far-Right allegation, I disagree with both the terminology and the ideological implications it indicates. No political party uses "far-Right" as a modifier to describe itself because the term "far-Right" is not a neutral word as it is often used by ideological opponents to minimize and degrade a movement's image into a sort of extremist, fringe movement. However, Popular Orthodox Rally/Popular Rally is neither extremist nor is it a fringe movement. In fact, not only is the party represented in the Euro-Parliament but the latest opinion polls actually indicate that the party has superseded the popularity of Synaspismos (which is not considered a fringe movement), thereby becoming the 4th largest political party in Greece. RASS places the party's support at 5.4%, Metron Analysis at 4.1%, MRB at 4.8%, Kapa Research at 4.6%, ALCO at 5.6%, and VPRC at 4.5%.[1] If you average these numbers out they come to 4.8% -- a significant percentage for any of the smaller, third parties (i.e. every party except for New Democracy and PASOK). So while the party may not be running the government any time soon, there can be no doubt that it registers on the political battlefield.
Although many mainstream Greek journalists describe the party as being part of the "far-Right", nothing could be further from the truth. Not only does the party strenuously reject the label as a form of calumny but, more importantly, the party's ideological platform and ideological composition are in contradiction with what most define as being "far-Right". Although it is true that when Karatzaferis was still a member of New Democracy that he held deeply nationalistic positions of a Conservative nature and that when he formed Popular Orthodox Rally that it also had a similar socio-political character, these positions never lasted very long in the party. Initially, those positions drew support from Rightist nationalists but Karatzaferis radically altered the ideological platform of his party as early as 2002 by going into the direction of the Left. By 2004, the party was so different from its beginnings that a number of his candidates (e.g. Rania Kairi, Stavroula Tzanetakou, Basilis Protopapas, etc.) and a portion of his voters felt so alienated that they gravitated to Patriotic Alliance. (Patriotic Alliance's core members and voters are composed primarily of former Golden Dawn members and former Popular Orthodox Rally members.) However, although Karatzaferis' move lost him a large portion of nationalist support (with the exception of Hellenic Front, which had merged with his party and infused it with a small amount of nationalistic support from its own supporters), he gained much support from the Left side of the spectrum. The fact that long-time members of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) were drawn to his party, became members, and/or even ran as candidates (e.g. Efthimios Droulias and Elektra Papathanasiou) is very illustrative of this point. As a result, Popular Rally became a Popularist party with an extremely convoluted ideology and a membership that ran up and down the entire Left-Right political spectrum. It is also worth mentioning that Karatzaferis' rhetoric today (which is oftentimes very Liberal) is radically different than the rhetoric that made him such a controversial figure. To cite but a single example, Karatzaferis not only completely avoids using the word "nationalist" to describe himself or his party but has even characterized nationalism as "poisonous". It is therefore obvious that the "far-Right" label is not only inappropriate because of ideological reasons but also pejorative. If you believe that Popular Orthodox Rally/Popular Rally is "far-Right" in spite of all this evidence to the contrary, then by your logic it would be fair to label PASOK as far-Left, and KKE and Synaspismos as both ultra-Left political parties. But I think we both know that such characterizations would not be considered neutral language.
Finally, I highly urge you to read my detailed comments on both of these issues (i.e. the name issue and the ideological issue) in Talk:Popular_Orthodox_Rally. They go into far more depth and excerpt from a number of sources to provide evidence for my points. Critias 23:01, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Two-party system
Since the article says Greece has a two-party system, wouldn't it make sense for it to point out which of these parties are the two dominant ones? This is not something people not familiar with Greek politics (like me) would know. - AdelaMae (talk - contribs) 15:08, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Defunct parties
I've added the Hellenism Political Party (Κόμμα Ελληνισμού) and the Hellenic Women's Political Party (Κόμμα Ελληνίδων Γυναικών) to the list of "Defunct parties" since both have stopped taking part in elections (to the best of my knowledge) and chose to give their support to Popular Orthodox Rally some time ago as their websites indicate. However, they may or may not function like Hellenic Front which, although it merged with Popular Orthodox Rally, still exists. Critias 17:28, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Hrisi Avgi
If PATRI.S. is nationalist, then hrisi avgi is too. Also, read that [2] Mitsos 07:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sorting of defunct parties
I think it would be valuable to sort the defunct parties in historical periods, eg pre-WWI, interwar, post-WWII/pre-Junta, post-Metapolitefsi. I propose this as I think it is valuable to distinguish major parties of the past (such as Venizelos' Liberal Party and Gounaris' People's Party, Papandreou's Center Union and Karamanlis' National Radical Union) that bear important historical significance from minor parties that either flowered and withered in the shadow of the major ones (such as the National Political Union) or contemporary minor parties (from Hrisi Avgi to the Movement of Free Citizens). --Michalis Famelis (talk) 15:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
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- I'm not sure if it's necessary. Lists are supposed to be kept as simple as possible, and we already have the parties categorised according to ideology.
- I'll add some who/what/when details for some of the parties later.--Damac 08:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I think Michalis is right. Mitsos 15:51, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Bulgarian Human Rights in Macedonia: Is this a political party?
I noticed that some of the minor political parties are not even minor minor parties. For instance the "Bulgarian Human Rights in Macedonia" attracted attention due to it's name. It is a political organization that has ONE office, less than 5 members (according to what they have declared) which I think are of the same family. They have never participated in any election and it seems they don't intent to. When I think of very minor political parties I thought of at least 0,1% or some sort of (at least regional) activity. What is your opinion? 87.203.51.98
So what??? All minor parties are listed here, even if they are very very minor. Mitsos 14:48, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, there are many political activist and populous organizations (e.g. Movement for the political and social rights/ Kinisi gia ta politika kai koinonika dikeomata) but that does not make them political parties. In the case of "Bulgarian Human Rights" it seems even worse because it probably is about one person.87.203.223.198
