Populism and Euroscepticism in Greece: Left and Right United (TruLies Blog by Heinz-Jürgen Axt)
Normally, it is difficult to imagine a left wing and a right wing populist party building a government coalition together. In Greece, however, this has been reality since the election of 25 January 2015. While the leftist populist party SYRIZA (Synaspismos Rizospastikis Aristeras, Coalition of the radical left) had won the elections and managed to obtain 149 of 300 mandates in the Parliament in Athens, it was missing two representatives for a majority government. So they formed a coalition with the right wing populist party ANEL (Anexartiti Ellines, Independent Greeks), which had won 13 mandates. In a new blog post for TruLies, Heinz-Jürgen Axt analyses what motivations by the parties were behind this.
Heinz-Jürgen Axt is professor emeritus at the university Duisburg-Essen.
The project “TruLies – The Truth about Lies on Europe”, aided by the Stiftung Mercator and run by the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in cooperation with Das Progressive Zentrum, has two principal objectives. On the one hand, it strives to deconstruct Eurosceptic and populist prejudices, animosities, and false assertions, by means of social scientifically-grounded analysis. Thus, it aims to contribute to a rationalisation of the public discourse and debate in Germany (and beyond). On the other hand, “TruLies Europe” endeavours to publicly communicate its findings beyond the select circle of scholars to political actors, civil society, and the wider public. You may find further information on our website: http://trulies-europe.de/.
Heinz-Jürgen Axt‘s contribution can be found here.
