Laikos Orthodoxos Synagermos

Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός Orthodox popular alarm
Party leader	Georgios Karatzaferis
founding	September 14, 2000
Headquarters	Athens
Youth organization	ΝΕ.ΟΣ (Neolea LA.OS)
newspaper	Alpha 1 (Αλφα Ενα)
Alignment	Nationalism , right-wing populism
Colours)	blue
EP Group	formerly Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD)
Website	www.laos.gr

The Popular Orthodox Rally ( Greek Λαϊκός Ορθόδοξος Συναγερμός , German , Völkischer Orthodox Alarm ', also Orthodox people Alarm', Orthodox people's movement "or Volksorthodoxe Rally ', in short: Greek ΛΑ.Ο.Σ. or LA.OS , with an emphasis on the "o" as in λαός laós 'people') is a right-wing populist to ultra-right Greek party .

Party formation

LA.OS was founded on September 14, 2000 by former journalist Georgios Karatzaferis . Karatzaferis was previously excluded from the conservative Nea Dimokratia party after a falling out with Kostas Karamanlis .

Programmatic orientation

The politics of LA.OS are shaped by a restrictive immigration policy, ethnic nationalism , hostility towards globalization and a sharp Christian-Orthodox value conservatism . The political scientist Richard Stöss also describes them as “ extreme right ” and classifies LA.OS as “ nationalistic and neo-racist, more critical of the system”.

In terms of foreign policy, the party advocates an expansive arms policy and a tough stance towards Turkey , Macedonia and Albania . She advocates further strengthening relations with Russia and Serbia and calls for the immediate withdrawal of international troops from Kosovo .

Self-image

The party sees itself as an absolutely democratic, “orthodox” folk, anthropocentric, modern and Hellenocentric party. Furthermore, it officially declares that it is neither dogmatically anti-American nor dogmatically anti-European and further that it is not a nationalist, right-wing extremist, racist or religious fundamentalist party.

Criticism: Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and fascism

The positions and appearances of high-ranking party members and the party founder Karatzaferis himself, who has already attracted attention several times through anti-Semitic hate speech, strongly contradict the official self - image. At the founding congress of LA.OS in 2000 he called for a vote “for a parliament without Freemasons , without homosexuals , without addicts to Zionism ” and called on the Israeli ambassador to Greece to talk to him about “the Holocaust, Auschwitz - and the Dachau myth ”. In 2001 he said, “The Jews have no right to speak in Greece and provoke the political world. Your insolence is gross. "

Karatzaferis also worked with the Holocaust denier or proponent Konstantinos Plevris , the ideological father of the neo-Nazi party Chrysi Avgi . From 2007, his son Athanasios Plevris sat for LA.OS in parliament , who distanced himself from his father's statements, but whose acquittal in court, in which he had also represented his father as a lawyer, enthusiastically commented that it had just been proven that freedom of expression prevails in Greece.

Konstantinos Plevris candidate in the general election in June 2012 for LA.OS In the general election in 2009 also stood as candidates makis voridis and Adonis Georgiadis for LAOS. In 2003, Voridis told the extreme right-wing magazine Ellinikes Grammes about the diary of Anne Frank and the demonstrably anti-Semitic fiction The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that the authenticity of both works should be assessed by historians, which was often interpreted as an implicit allusion to right-wing extremist ideas. As a youth, he was active in a student group led by the former dictator Georgios Papadopoulos , who was then in prison . Minister of Infrastructure since 2011, he was expelled from the party on February 10, 2012 because of his support for the austerity packages and joined the conservative New Democracy . Adonis Georgiadis, who, as a bookseller, advertised Konstantinos Plevris' anti-Semitic book “The Jews - The Whole Truth”, but had expressly distanced himself from its content, also transferred to Nea Dimokratia in February 2012 and was appointed as the new Minister of Health in June 2013 . Athanasios Plevris joined Nea Dimokratia in May 2012 and became a member of his party for a short time in 2014 after the resignation of a party colleague.

Positions

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The basic ideology of the party is based on the theory that after the demise of real existing socialism there can and should no longer be any party-programmatic divisions into right, left or center. According to LA.OS, this division has given way to an attitude in which parties speak out either for or against globalization . LA.OS is decidedly against globalization. LA.OS takes the position that the Greeks should give up the traditional borders between left, right and center and concentrate on their common interests. In the election campaign for the 2007 parliamentary elections, for example, LA.OS posters showed Georgios Karatzaferis with a boxing glove and the request that all Greeks should get a fist. Furthermore, this includes the view that Turkey does not belong to Europe geographically or culturally and that Turkey's accession to the EU must be prevented.

Since the factual amalgamation of the party with other small right-wing extremist parties such as Elliniko Metopo (Hellenic Front) , the party has not only strengthened its position, but has also added a number of functionaries to its ranks who have repeatedly expressed themselves in public with strong racist and anti-Semitic views to have. Another important characteristic of this party is anti-communism because of the politically strong Greek left ( KKE , SYRIZA ).

At the European level, LA.OS was part of the Alliance of Independent Democrats in Europe , which was dissolved at the end of 2008 , a Eurosceptic party alliance that was part of the Independence and Democracy group in the European Parliament . The only member of the LA.OS European Parliament, Georgios Georgiou , announced in early February 2009 that he would be joining the newly founded Libertas party , which is also Eurosceptic and rejects the Lisbon Treaty . However, both the Alliance of Independent Democrats and Libertas later ceased operations.

Election results

In the parliamentary elections in September 2007 , LA.OS entered parliament with 3.8% and ten members of parliament, in the parliamentary elections in March 2004 LA.OS failed at the three percent hurdle (2.2%), but was able to send a member to the European Parliament with 4.2% in the European elections in June 2004 . After the European elections in June 2009 , the party has two MEPs with 7.13% in the European Parliament. In the parliamentary elections in October 2009 , the party achieved its best result with 5.63% and 15 MPs. In August 2011, the parliamentary group increased by one MP when the then ND MP Konstantinos Kiltidis moved to LAOS.

In the parliamentary elections in May 2012 , the party fell below the three percent mark with a result of 2.9% and thus failed to make it into the Greek parliament . Since this election did not result in a governable majority, parliamentary elections were held again on June 17th . In these elections, the party again failed to make it into parliament with a greatly deteriorated 1.58% result.

Temporary government participation

LA.OS participated on November 11, 2011 in the coalition government of Loukas Papadimos with four members. The coalition partners were the socialist PASOK and the conservative ND . According to general opinion, the election of Papadimos as transitional prime minister goes back to a proposal by Karatzaferis. Filippos Petsalnikos was originally intended as transitional prime minister. Makis Voridis took over the post of Minister of Transport, Asterios Rondoulis that of Deputy Minister for Agricultural Development and Food, Georgios Georgiou that of Deputy Minister of Defense; Adonis Georgiadis served as deputy minister of economics. On February 10, 2012, LA.OS withdrew its support from the government because the party was no longer willing to support the drastic austerity measures that the EU , ECB and IMF had made a condition for further financial aid. Makis Voridis and Adonis Georgiadis then joined the New Democracy.

See also

• Political parties in Greece

literature

• Lazaros Miliopoulos: Extremism in Greece. In Eckhard Jesse , Tom Thieme (Ed.): Extremism in the EU countries . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-17065-7 .
• Xenophon A. Yataganas, George Pagoulatos: Europe Othered, Europe Enlisted, Europe Possessed. Greek Public Intellectuals and the European Union. In Justine Lacroix, Kalypso Nicolaïdis: European stories. Intellectual debates on Europe in national contexts. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-959462-7 , doi : 10.1093 / acprof: oso / 9780199594627.003.0010 .

Web links

• Homepage of the party Laikós Orthódoxos Synagermós
• Homepage of party chairman Geórgios Karatzaféris

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Website ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ website
3. ↑ ^{a b} G. Anastasakis: Information on the website of the LA.OS Prefecture Committee Baden-Württemberg.
4. ↑ Greece elects a new parliament . On the website of the Greek Embassy in Germany Greek-botschaft.de , November 13, 2011
5. ↑ Elections Monitor - Greece. ( Memento of the original from December 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On the website of the Robert Schuman Foundation robert-schuman.eu , September 17, 2007 
6. ↑ Anna Maria Droumpouki: Popular Orthodox Rally (Greece). In Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus. Volume 5 (organizations, institutions, movements), de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012, p. 367.
7. ^ Lazaros Miliopoulos: Extremism in Greece. In: Extremism in the EU countries . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 153.
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Miliopoulos: Extremism in Greece. 2011, p. 155.
9. ↑ Xenophon A. Yataganas, George Pagoulatos: Europe Othered, Europe Enlisted, Europe Possessed. Greek Public Intellectuals and the European Union. In: European stories. Intellectual debates on Europe in national contexts. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, p. 188.
10. ↑ Richard Stöss: Right-wing extremism in transition . Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Department Dialog East Germany, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89892-392-4 , p. 193, Table 20 ( PDF ).
11. ^ Richard Stöss: Right-wing populism and right-wing extremism. Some comments on the contribution by Hans-Georg Betz . In: Heinrich Böll Foundation (Ed.): The new right challenge. Right-wing extremism in Germany and Europe . Heinrich Böll Foundation, Green Academy, Berlin 2005, p. 21 ( PDF ). PDF ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ↑ Official party program from www.laos.gr (in Greek) ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
13. ↑ http://www.iospress.gr/mikro2001/mikro20010929.htm (in Greek)
14. ↑ ^{a b} Greek Jews worried as two far-right politicians join mainstream party. (No longer available online.) In: World Jewish Congress . February 21, 2012, archived from the original on October 29, 2013 ; accessed on October 27, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ↑ New Greek government includes ministers of antisemitic party. (No longer available online.) In: World Jewish Congress . November 17, 2011, archived from the original on October 29, 2013 ; accessed on October 27, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ Wassilis Aswestopoulos: acquittal for Holocaust advocates and anti-Semites. In: Heise online . March 31, 2009, accessed October 27, 2013 . 
17. ↑ Publications . Walter de Gruyter, 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-030535-7 ( google.de [accessed on August 4, 2018]).
18. ↑ Mark Ames: Austerity & Fascism In Greece - The Real 1% Doctrine. In: Naked Capitalism Blog. November 16, 2011, accessed October 27, 2013 . 
19. ↑ Election result Greece ( Memento of the original from June 11, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
20. ↑ Βουλευτικές Εκλογές 2012 ( memento of the original from May 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Result of the 2012 general election 
21. ↑ Official result of the parliamentary election in June 2012 ( memento of the original from June 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Greek Ministry of the Interior (Greek, English) 
22. ↑ Greece: Swearing-in of the new government ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Greece Newspaper, November 11, 2011.