By Penelope Galliou

The moment that characterized yesterday’s session of the Parliament – apart from the discussion about the fires – was the photo of the president of the “Spartans” Vassilis Stiga, sitting alone on the benches of his faction. A photo harbinger of what is to come for the party, which as it so suddenly “inflated” a few days before the June elections and managed to enter the Parliament, correspondingly suddenly and only two months after its election, seems to be “disintegrating”. A dissolution for the Spartan party under Vassilis Stigas, which however opens the “back door” of the Parliament to return, as another “Trojan horse” the Ilias Kasidiaris.

Of course, the violent background of the last few days surrounding the fate of the “Spartans”, with the majority of the deputies having come into open conflict with Vassilis Stigas for the “eyes” of Ilias Kasidiaris, almost certainly presented this development and the events came to seal the bad atmosphere within the party and the inability of its leader to control and lead his caucus. A group that Mr. Stigas himself had admitted that managed to enter the Parliament, having as “fuel” the help of Ilias Kasidiaris and for this very reason on the night of the elections he publicly thanked the condemned Golden Dawn leader.

Before the ink was even dry on his swearing in Parliament however, Vassilis Stigas now seems to be heading towards the seats of the independent MPs, “handing over” – if the scenarios are confirmed – the party to the one who seems to have really belonged to him from the beginning: Ilias Kasidiaris. Because the deletion or the withdrawal of all or even the majority of the Spartans MPs from the existing party deprives Vassilis Stiga of the leadership, but does not prevent the MPs instigated by Ilias Kasidiaris from setting up a new parliamentary group, as long as they are at least five, and in this way and possibly with a “guide”, from the condemned member of the Golden Dawn, a new leader to establish the new party Kasidiaris. A party in which the imprisoned former Golden Dawn MP will be its shadow political leader.

The Spartan trench battle, as photographed by Vasilis Stigas, speaking to journalists, it seems to be about the money, about the funding, but without the “Kassidiaris rebels” counting on the “treasurer”, because in order for a party to be financed by the Ministry of Finance, it must have participated in the national elections. And because any new parliamentary group that will be established under the leadership of Kasidiaris will not have emerged after the elections, but from the split group of the “Spartans”, this is not possible. Unless the “rebels” manage to take the leadership of the party through a conference – which they seek but Mr. Stigas refuses – and only in this case would they also claim state funding. Let’s see.