As Greece's centre-right heads for a landslide, fringe parties jostle to squeeze into Parliament

With the formerly ascendant, Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party broken, its leadership in prison, and the anti-Western left defanged, Greece’s political fringes are looking more gauche than sinister.

Still, up to five small parties ~ three on the far right and two on the far left ~ could conceivably reach the 3% support needed to enter Parliament in Sunday’s repeat elections, despite a swing back to mainstream politicians as the scars of Greece’s 10-year financial crisis gradually heal.

That would increase the parties in Parliament from five to a maximum nine, sapping the majority of the center-right New Democracy, or ND, which is expected to retain its 20-percentage-point lead from a first vote last month but wants an absolute majority to avoid the need to form a coalition. If ND finds it can’t govern alone, it could seek a third election during the August peak holiday season.

The small parties’ performance “will affect the outcome, as the more parties that manage to elect lawmakers, the higher the threshold for ND to win a majority,” analyst Wolfango Piccoli from Teneo said.

“Moreover, the entry of more fringe parties into Parliament ~ especially from the extreme right spectrum ~ could complicate the legislative process over the next four years.”