World Jewish News
Neo-Nazi party in Greece confirms electoral gains
19.06.2012, Anti-Semitism Greece's neo-Nazi party Chryssi Avghi (Golden Dawn) won between 6.0 and 7.5% of the vote in Sunday’s elections, according to exit polls.
The party, whose support has been boosted by anti-immigrant anger, scored 6.97% in inconclusive elections last month, winning 21 seats in the 300-member Parliament.
The head of Golden Dawn party Nikos Mihaloliakos has denied the existence of gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps during WWII in an interview on Greek television.
“There were no oven, no gas chambers, it’s a lie,” he said, continuing to ask of the reporter: “Auschwitz, what Auschwitz? I didn’t go there. What happened there? Have you been there?” He went on to claim he has “read lots of books casting doubt on the number of six million Jews” who died in the Holocaust.
The central board of Jewish communities in Greece had called on the Greek government to “condemn and isolate the forces seeking the revival of the darkest ideology of the European history”.
The two top contenders in Sunday’s election crucial for Greece, Europe and the world were in a dead heat with Greek voters apparently polarized over the harsh austerity measures demanded by international bailouts.
But with 99.9% of ballots counted, Interior Ministry results put centre-right New Democracy on 29.7% of the vote (129 seats), radical left and anti-EU Syriza on 26.9% (71) and the Socialist Pasok on 12.3% (33).
There are 300 seats in parliament and Greece has a rule that gives the leading party 50 extra seats.
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras said Greeks had chosen to stay in the euro and called for a "national salvation government".
Syriza head Alexis Tsipras, a 37-year-old former student activist, had vowed to cancel the terms of Greece’s international bailout deal and repeal its austerity measures — a move many think will force Greece to leave the 17-nation eurozone.
by: Maureen Shamee
EJP
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