The small right-wing Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party, which propped up the Tsipras government as the junior coalition partner up until early 2019, appears headed for a dissolution, as its central committee members on Sunday agreed not to stand in the upcoming July 7 general elections.
Founded and led by one-time New Democracy (ND) minister Panos Kammenos, the hardline anti-bailout and anti-austerity party achieved Parliament representation in both the January 2015 and subsequent September 2015 snap election, joining the then equally populist and high-riding SYRIZA party in forming a “strange bedfellows” coalition government.
Hard left SYRIZA and Kammenos’ populist conservative political vehicle converged on several fronts, such as virulent opposition to bailout memorandums, austerity and creditors’ terms.
The party’s debut in the May 2012 was spectacular, as it picked up 10.6 percent of the general vote and 33 out of 300 deputies in parliament. It fell to a still respectable, for a small party in Greece, 7.5 percent of the general vote a month later in a repeat election, this time placing 20 MPs in Parliament.
The party and Kammenos, rewarded with the high-profile defense minister’s portfolio, remained solid allies with their ideological opposite, SYRIZA, even as shambolic negotiations by their coalition government with European creditors in the first half of 2015 collapsed.
Kammenos and all of the right-wing party’s MPs and top cadres supported the holding of a controversial referendum in July 2015, ostensibly held on creditors’ “last chance” offer. The referendum was requested and promoted by PM Alexis Tsipras, with a resounding “no” being delivered in the referendum via a 61.31 percent vote, amid a 62.5-percent turnout of eligible voters.
Faced with unbending partners in the EU and the Eurozone, Tsipras’ coalition government bowed to creditors’ demands, passed a third consecutive bailout – with an overwhelming majority in Parliament – and won a snap election in September 2015. Without missing beat, AN.EL’s re-elected deputies, 10 this time, again provided a vote of confidence to the hard left government, with several MPs and cadres also snagging Cabinet posts.
The 2019 Prespes Agreement, however, eventually dissolved the Tsipras-Kammenos coalition, with half of the latter’s MPs, in fact, taking a giant “leap” from the populist far-right, on Greece’s political spectrum, towards the far left to join SYRIZA.
Ιn the May 26 European Parliament elections, Kammenos’ party failed to exceed 1 percent of the valid votes cast, while its few supported candidates in municipal and regional government elections had no electoral impact whatsoever.
