Pre-election, the “Spartians” and their… Leonidas, the… commander Vassilis Stigas may have had a moderate, right-wing, conservative speech, but this cannot under any circumstances hide their far-right identity.
The support of Ilias Kasidiaris, who was convicted for the criminal organization Golden Dawn, boosted the numbers of the Spartans as the orphans of the extreme right found representation in this particular party.
However, no matter how much they try to hide their political identity, they do not succeed. It is as if Kasidiaris is trying to cover up the Nazi cross he painted on his arm.
The positions of the Spartan party, which entered the Parliament with 12 deputies and made a surprise, are posted on their website and one can understand exactly what they are.
“We are the iron arm and the real embankment that will stop the descent and the selling out of Greece and the Greeks not through words but through works that express and represent all Greek souls. Always determined to guard Thermopylae, we start and all the faithful who come…”
This is their position and it is not far from the Golden Dawn or the “Greeks” of Ilias Kasidiaris.
And just so you don’t have any doubt about the graphicness (dangerous as it turns out) there is another place where they justify why they are taking it down:
“For the Motherland that gave birth to us and raised us under the shadow of the Parthenon and the Sun of Vergina, that sang to us the legend of Agia Sophia and the epic of Northern Epirus. For the Homeland of Theodoros Kolokotronis and Spyros Kagiale, the Homeland with the plains, the mountains and the endless Blue…”. But also the faces that we will often see in the Parliament, set the mark that will follow.
Commander Stigas
Just by analyzing their leader, Vassilis Stiga, one understands that the sheepishness of the “moderate, nationalist” cannot cover the reality.
Stigas, who started with the Political Spring, then went to the People’s Orthodox Alarm of Mr. Karatzaferis but did not stay for long. For years he was an “orphan” politically but in 2017 he joined the Radical National Alarm party.
He decides to found the “Spartians” in 2017 but in 2019 he was a candidate for Parliament with the Union of Centers of B. Leventis.
The support of Kasidiaris gave him wind in his sails and made him a “True Horse” of the extreme right in Greece.
Declaring himself a freelancer but also dealing with “journalism, free reporting and the presentation of programs of political interest” he has the opportunity to host many far-right activists, mainly from the ELASYN party of the convicted and imprisoned Yiannis Lagos.
Want to know what he has said from time to time? He characterizes the Turks as “Mongols”, Nikos Dendias as an “employee of the Americans and the Jews”, Alexis Tsipras as a “traitor”, the judges of Florina as “bastards”, the inhabitants of North Macedonia as “Gipsiskopians”, Charilaos Florakis (former leader of Greek Communist Party) as a “chief criminal” and “occupation whore” Melina Merkouri.
“I also want to thank Ilias Kasidiaris for the help he gave us. It was the fuel that gave us the impetus to reach this result. We will bring a new ethos to the Greek Parliament. We were a social action network that helped compatriots who had a problem during the years of the memorandum. We will be next to the Greek, the wronged”, said Vassilis Stigas in his first statement. And I mean, I mean.
Far right
Other members of the Spartans also have far-right origins. For example, Dionysis Valtogiannis, who is elected in Etoloakarnania county and takes the seat from SYRIZA, is the best man of the goldsmith Ilias Barbarousi.
The well-known “Karaiskakis” who was himself an MP of the Golden Dawn in the same prefecture. According to information, K. Barbarousis has baptized the youngest son of Mr. Valtogiannis. With the support of Barbarousi, Valtogiannis will walk the corridors of the Parliament.
In 1st Thessaloniki, a Spartan MP is Yiannis Kontis. This is the manager of football players and former technical director of Football Club Aris, Kontis, before the Kasidiaris party was banned, had been announced as a candidate with the “Greeks” in the same constituency.
Michalis Gavgiotakis who was elected to Heraklion with the Spartans is a former bodybuilder and won a competition in 1985. He was named Mr. Crete. Gavgiotakis occupies the seat in Heraklion, “stealing” the fourth seat that was won by ND and Grigoris Paspatis.
Charalambos Katsivardas is the representative of the party and a new member of parliament in the Northern sector of Athens. A lawyer best known as… representing the family of a child who was “shocked” because he saw the movie “Boys in the Shower” which he became very shy about and awakened far-right, homophobic reflexes.
He had sent an extrajudicial letter to the Minister of Education Niki Kerameos for an event held in a school in Thessaloniki during which drag queens read fairy tales to children. In an interview on an online show, at the beginning of January, Katsivardas had admitted that he is active in the “Greeks” of Kasidiaris.
Some of the names that appear in the Spartans Parliamentary Group have some clear characteristics of far-right or atomized political identity.
For example, the 32-year-old Kon. Floros, who was elected in Larissa, has on his resume that he was present at the large rallies for the Macedonian, the Indignant, against the mandatory vaccinations, in favor of the health workers who were not vaccinated, etc.
Giorgos Manoussos, who was elected in the western sector of Athens, often tweets what Ilias Kasidiaris says and writes, while he himself declares that he belongs to the Hellenes party.
The member of parliament – Spartiatis I. Dimitrokallis, who is elected in Eastern Attica, also speaks to the Greeks.
His report on gun ownership in Greece is typical: “The American law on the “house-fortress” will be instituted in Greece as well and thus the daily phenomena of burglaries, robberies, rapes and murders with civilian victims inside their homes will be immediately eliminated. As a continuation of the “house-fortress” institution, we will modify the legal framework for gun ownership by Greek citizens based on American standards. Legal gun ownership will boost the Greeks’ sense of security against the threat of crime and limit the indecency of criminals, who today are a scourge on the homes and shops or businesses of law-abiding citizens.”
We also read in the “News” about other candidate MPs of the party with a direct connection to the extreme right of Kasidiaris.
“In a presentation video of the members of the Kasidiaris formation, the names of seven other parliamentary candidates of the far-right party that was registered on the pollsters’ radar just a few days ago appear. They are Konstantinos Venetsanos (Corinthia), Nikolaos Kekis (Kavala), Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos (Messinia), Efstratios Priga (Chalkidiki), Athanasios Chalkias (A’ Athens), Jeni Dassiou (Fthiotida) and Georgios Diamanti (Kilkis).
In the lists of the “Spartians” and specifically in B’ Thessaloniki, the lawyer Petros Dimitriadis appears, who in November 2021 signed a text as legal advisor to Kasidiaris and one of the legal advisors of his failed venture.
Alexandros Zerveas (candidate in Second Piraeus) appears on August 30, 2021 to make statements on camera, also as an executive of the “Greeks”. Vassilios Katsenis (candidate in Argolis) had expressed on May 31, 2022 his intention to run as a candidate with the “Greeks”, while Vasiliki Tsami (Pella) appears to be participating in a party event run by the person sentenced to 13 years in prison and six months of neo-Nazis in Giannitsa, on July 25, 2022.
Names of other candidates appear on the local ballot papers of Hellenic Dawn, the scheme with which Golden Dawn entered successive local election contests. Otherwise, the ballots of the “Spartians” include Panagiotis Bebetsos, vice-president of the Patriotic Association of Laconia, who organized the movement of residents of the area to attend the funeral of the former King Constantine, as well as Dominiki Papadopoulou, who tried her luck months ago her as a model in the audition of… GNTM (Greek Next Top Model).
