Banning parties on ideological grounds

Dear reader,

This is our weekly round-up from Greece.

Greece is slipping towards ‘Orbanisation,’ a renowned Public Law professor and President of the European Constitutional Law Centre acknowledged. Most worryingly, Greece’s Top Court, aided by ND lawmaking, has opened Pandora’s box for parties to be banned based on their ideology. 

The “Greek Watergate” and the apparent cover-up effort is a major blow to Greek democratic polity, the same expert warned, while the PEGA Committee was publishing a damning report for Greece as to the scandal. At the same time, the political leaders ‘debate’ was marked by journalists’ non-freedom, while DiEM25 denounced its exclusion from government-friendly oligarch media.

Finally, former Finance Minister Alekos Papadopoulos made a dramatic plea to the three governmental parties: Fiscal data have been presented rosy while they are grim, he wrote. You should make a proper fiscal assessment and join forces so that the country does not enter an economic crisis yet again. 

“The court went an unneeded step further and used ideology as a criterion to ban a party from running”

Greeks are heading to the ballot box in an atmosphere where serious doubts have been cast about whether the Constitution has been properly upheld - we were also writing about that in our previous newsletter. We emphasized that there were 14 (mostly right or far-right) parties excluded from elections - out of 50 in total submissions, something ‘too convenient’ for the ND government.