The 67-year-old head of the hardline Communist party has ruled out cooperation with any other party, wants Greece to leave the EU and eurozone and unilaterally write off all its debts. Formed in 1918, the party is Greece’s oldest. Papariga became the first woman to lead a Greek party in 1991. The party won 8.5 percent of the vote on May 6.
- Nikolaos Michaloliakos – Golden Dawn
Extreme rightist Golden Dawn is the one party nobody is likely to court in coalition talks: its favored “Blood and Honor” chant is the Hitler Youth’s motto, its emblems eerily resemble Nazi insignia and its officials have praised Adolf Hitler. But the group led by Nikolaos Michaloliakos, 55, rejects the neo-Nazi label – a party official has sued the Mayor of Thessaloniki over that – stressing its nationalist credentials. The party stormed into Parliament for the first time last month amid a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, gaining 7 percent of the vote and 21 of the 300 seats. Golden Dawn supporters have been repeatedly accused of violent attacks on immigrants. The party gained additional notoriety this month when its official spokesman repeatedly slapped a female Communist official twice his age during a live TV debate, hid for two days to escape arrest and then sued his victim for alleged verbal provocation. Golden Dawn is anti-bailout. It wants to “liberate and incorporate with the motherland” parts of neighboring Albania and limit voting and land ownership rights to “those who are Greek by birth and conscience.”
- Fotis Kouvelis – Democratic Left
He heads the mildest of the three main left-wing parties running for election and is seen as a potential kingmaker in any coalition government. After the May 6 election, Kouvelis insisted that he would not join in any coalition that excluded Syriza – his former party – despite being reportedly offered the position of prime minister. He has since said he will do whatever is needed to help form a government. Kouvelis served as justice minister for three months in 1989. The 63-year-old lawyer split from Syriza in 2010 to form a more clearly pro-European party that unhesitatingly backs Greece’s EU and eurozone membership. The party received 6.1 percent of the vote last month.
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Coalition of the Radical Left, European Union, Fotis Kouvelis, Golden Dawn, Greece, Nazi, Neo-Nazism
