June 2009

Mixed fortunes
but no unity for far-right

By Graeme Atkinson, HOPE not hate

For the extreme right, the European Parliament (EP) elections brought mixed fortunes with some winners, some notable losers, but overall, no surprises in the election, in which 375 million people where eligible to vote in 27 countries and to decide which parties fill the Brussels/Strasbourg parliament’s 785 seats.

In general, the results signify a retrenchment rather than a radicalisation of the right in which conservative parties profited both from the failure of the left to come up with coherent answers to the economic crisis and from varying degrees of political disarray in EU member states.

If anything, it was “local national circumstances” and their traditional themes of racism and immigration – or more accurately, public concern and fears over it – that produced much of the far-right vote. Many of the right-wing extremists standing had nothing to say  about the crisis, climate change or any of the other issues pressing on us all. Unfortunately, as usual, an over-excited media looked at the far-right’s showing and hyperventilated itself into twitter about a surge forward for right-wing extremism without stopping to analyse the results objectively or properly or even, in many cases, to point out that the far-right won only 37 seats out of the 785 contested!

The undoubted far-right winner in the ballot was Geert Wilders’ and his anti-Islamic and bitterly anti-European Union (EU) Party for Freedom which grabbed 17% of the vote in The Netherlands and catapulted itself into the position of the country’s second strongest party. It will now occupy four seats in the EP.

Another high scorer was the anti-immigrant, Islamophobic Danish People’s Party (DFP) whose vote rocketed from 6.8% in 2004 to just over 15% this time round, enabling it to double its seats from one to two.

Matching the DFP’s vote and coming from an almost nowhere vote of just 0.5% in 2004 were Finland’s bizarre right-wing populist True Finns party which got one person elected, scored almost 10% on its own account and, together with its alliance partners, the Christian Democrats, took almost 14% of the vote.

Also notching up double figures was Italy’s right-wing regionalist and racist Lega Nord, whose 3,126,915 votes worked out at 10.2% and gave it nine seats in the European parliament. It was not all plain sailing in Italy, however, because the fascist Fiamma Tricolore and Nick Griffin’s convicted terrorist friend Roberto Fiore lost their seats and a very valuable cash lifeline.

In terms of raw percentages, though the parties that passed the 10% mark were the big winners, in terms of making a breakthrough there were also smaller scale winners. First in this category was Hungary’s nazi party, Jobbik, which ran a virulently racist campaign against so-called “gypsy criminality”.

Even before Hungarian voters went to the polling stations, one of the party’s top candidates, Kirsztina Morvai, was busy spreading vile racist and anti-Jewish abuse on the internet. That 427,000 people – 14.77% – voted for this nazi party, whose uniformed private army  swaggers through the streets in flagrant defiance of the law, rips apart any suggestions that those who voted for it were simply making a protest. It is quite fitting that Jobbik is one of the BNP’s closest allies in Europe: nazis spotting nazis across a crowded room, as it were.

Griffin’s outfit, of course, can also be numbered amongst the smaller winners and will be represented by Griffin himself and his henchman Andrew Brons who formerly belonged to an organisation that cheerfully burned down synagogues in the 1960s.

Elsewhere, the smaller winners represented a patchwork of the varieties of off-the-shelf fascist, racist, Islamaphobic, homophobic and antisemitic bigotry that can be found across Europe. Thus, for example, the Greek fascists of LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally) came in with two seats on the strength of 366,000 votes or 7.2%. Also, in Slovakia and Romania, ultra-nationalists won their first seats in elections to the European parliament: one seat in Slovakia for the Slovak National Party and three seats in Romania for the Greater Romania Party.

This latter party was the centre of controversy last year when it split from the fascist Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty group in the European Parliament after being racially insulted by no less a figure than fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s granddaughter and former soft porn star, Alessandra. Also, in that part of the world, the anti-EU and ultra-nationalist Ataka party won two seats in Bulgaria. One of its main campaigns included a propaganda offensive against Bulgaria’s ethnic Turkish minority.

Wherever there are winners there are also losers and in this election some of the more usual suspects on the far right produced results that will have caused them a loss of prestige, not to mention parliamentary seats in Brussels and Strasbourg.

Top of the losers’ list was undoubtedly the League of Polish Families which took ten seats in 2004. This time round, this outfit jumped on board Irish multi-millionaire Declan Ganley’s right-wing populist Libertas chariot and politically fell off it, scoring an abysmal 1.14% and losing all its seats. The achievement in Poland was equalled in Germany, Sweden, Spain and Portugal where the far-right emerged empty-handed. Likewise in the Czech Republic, the BNP’s friends in the Czech National Party – who called in May for “a final solution to the Gypsy issue” could not even pass the 1% mark.

In France and Belgium, Europe’s two most professionally organised right-wing extremist parties, the Front National (FN) and Vlaams Belang (VB) respectively came unstuck and lost seats and probably some degree of political influence among their fellow right-wing extremists. The FN, fighting financial meltdown and torn apart by fierce rows over who will succeed its veteran boss, the volcanic Jean-Marie Le Pen, lost no fewer than four of its previous seven seats while the VB watched its support ebb away to its main rival on the right, the more moderate, populist DeDecker List, losing one of its three seats.

Where this leads the far right with its 37 seats won on a combined tally of 10,073,000 votes is not clear. At the time of writing the DFP, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), which got two seats, the FN, the VB, Ataka and the BNP were all taking soundings – and not necessarily with each other – about possible allies. The Latvian fans of the Waffen SS, the LNNK (For Fatherland and Freedom) will not be rushing to take part in the scramble for allies because its lone MEP is already in the warm embrace of the rightward-moving British Conservative Party and its leader David Cameron.

As to the rest of them, it is hard to tell where they are going to get an alliance from. Polite chitchat excluded, it is highly unlikely that the grass roots of either the Lega Nord or the FPÖ would tolerate any kind of long term alliance or even cooperation between the two parties because the territorial status of the disputed currently Italian South Tyrol region is still a contentious issue for both of them.

Jobbik will no doubt be delighted to get down and dirty in the gutter with its two pals in the BNP but will find its presence in the parliament less than popular with the hardliners that represent the Slovak National Party and the Greater Romania Party, whose campaigns were built on viciously attacking the presence of a large minority of ethnic Hungarians in both countries.

All of the elected hotchpotch of far-right parties are opposed to immigration, are racist and are, in some cases, antisemitic but that does not make them identical. Wilders, for example, while Islamophobic, is not antisemitic. On the contrary, he is an outspoken admirer of Israel, a position that is anathema to the likes of the BNP, the FN, Jobbik and most of the others.

For the Danish People’s Party, the thought of forming an bloc with parties whose feet are firmly planted in the soil of fascism is horrifying and any suitors coming from that direction are likely to be given the same short shrift that some of them have already been given by the Lega Nord.

Any possibility of this latest consignment of far-rightist MEPs cementing a stable and long-term alliance is a non-starter and puts their hopes of hitherto undreamt-of funds beyond their reach yet again. That said, their snouts will still be deep in the lucrative salaries, expenses and allowances trough and, though they embody the dreary politics of people who have failed to come to terms with the modern world, they will have the mantle of dubious respectability derived from the mere fact that they are there.

As said above, they are thirty-seven out of seven hundred and eighty-five and should be treated as what they really are: political outcasts and no hopers, the twisted spawn of history’s losers addicted to the politics of fear, hate and violence

Democracy’s fightback against them has to start immediately.

Links:
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com
http://www.stopthebnp.com
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/content/home/suit

 

Far-right prospects
in the European elections

By Graeme Atkinson, HOPE not hate, in Berlin

Elections affecting 500 million people in 27 EU member states will be held from 4-7 June to fill 736 seats in the European Parliament. That is two more countries than at the last election in 2004, because of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania.

Member states employ a variety of voting systems so making predictions of the outcome is difficult, particularly as the electorate has become more volatile in some countries as a result of internal political factors.

The UK is a prime example. The continuing scandal over MPs’ expenses has turned many voters away from the three main parties, especially Labour, leaving the way open for other parties to benefit. At the time of writing the UK Independence Party looks to be the main beneficiary, but the British National Party still believes its chances of securing seats have never been greater.

Across Europe, far-right fringe parties are very much in evidence, contesting the ballot in 23 countries, the exceptions being Cyprus, Estonia, Ireland and Luxembourg. Even Malta has the long-time nazi headbanger Norman Lowell standing under the flag of his grandly-named Imperium Europa party, in the forlorn hope of winning one of the island’s five seats.

If crackpot Lowell represented the spearhead of the far right’s intervention in the elections, there would be little to worry about. But the attempt by the far right to take up more room on the European bandwagon is taking place against a backdrop of increasingly difficult economic and social circumstances resulting from the world recession and, looming on the horizon, the spectre of massive population movements within and from outside Europe resulting from climate change.

It is hard to measure the likely impact of the right-wing extremists and populists because these parties function with varying degrees of professionalism and competence. There are 57 MEPs in the outgoing parliament whose politics put them to the right of the conservative mainstream. This is more than double the 24 far-right MEPs in the 1999-2004 parliament.

The more competent racist and right-wing populist parties that hold seats in the outgoing parliament are the National Front (FN) in France, Flemish Interest (VB) in Belgium, the National Alliance (AN) and Northern League (LN) in Italy, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria and the Danish People’s Party (DFP).

Of these the biggest single group is the AN, with nine MEPs. They are joined from Italy by two from the far-right separatist LN, the convicted fascist terrorist Roberto Fiore representing Social Alternative (AS), the fascist veteran Pino Rauti and a lone MEP from the fascist Tricolour Flame. The AN continues to rebrand itself as conservative and “post fascist” but its roots lie deep in Mussolini fascism.

As for the rest, the FN had seven MEPs, now has four and looks like losing at least one. The VB has three MEPs and is likely to lose at least one, the Freedom Party has one MEP and hopes to gain another, while the DFP also has one MEP and could make gains.

All these parties will field full lists of candidates but the FN is beset by internal financial and political crises, while the VB has seen sections of its electoral support and membership ebb away to the Dedecker List, the new kid on the Belgian populist block.

It was noteworthy that in the previous parliament even the most serious attempt to weld together the disparate right-wing extremist and populist parties, under the banner of the Identity Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS) group, failed at its first test. This stunt, promoted by Andreas Mölzer of the FPÖ, was a flagrant bid to lay their hands on the huge amounts of cash and resources that official recognition as a parliamentary group brings.

It blew apart when one of its members, Alessandra Mussolini, expressed her view that Romanian migrants were criminals, a move that did not endear her to her colleagues from the Greater Romania party, who promptly walked out, leaving the ITS to crumble and lose official recognition when its numbers fell below what was needed to form a group.

Away from the more professional parties, the picture of far-right participation in the election is varied. In Germany, the two main far-right competitors, the Republicans and the Germany People’s Union, will compete with each other for the fascist vote and guarantee that the far right will again fail to send an MEP to Brussels.

In Austria too there are two far-right parties standing, the Freedom Party and the late Jörg Haider’s breakaway Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ), which, polls suggest, might also grab a seat.

In the Netherlands, the only recognisably far-right party on the ballot paper is Geert Wilders’s populist and fanatically Islamophobic Freedom Party (PVV), which might well provide the country’s first far-right MEP. Interestingly Wilders seems to want any MEPs elected for his party to plough a lone furrow and retain their independence from other far-right formations. This may be attributable to the fact that Wilders is strongly pro-Israel and knows only too well that other far-right parties are either overtly or latently antisemitic.

In northern Europe, the DFP finds a little echo in Sweden where both the Sweden Democrats and its even more extreme offspring, the National Democrats, are fielding candidates. Neither holds any seats, a situation unlikely to change in this election. In Finland, the far right is represented by the bizarre anti-immigrant, anti-EU Real Finns party, which could sneak a seat under the country’s proportional representation system.

On the Iberian peninsula, the anti-immigrant Partido Popular in Portugal has two MEPs and may retain them, but the fascist National Renewal Party, which is also standing, will not be sending any MEPs to join them. In neighbouring Spain, a ragbag of five fascist parties will stand for the 50 available seats in the hope of winning one. Their prospects are not very bright. In the 2004 elections, the four fascist outfits that stood were lucky to take just over 1% of the vote between them.

In Greece, voters will find Europe’s arguably most openly and violently nazi party, Golden Dawn, sharing the ballot paper with the other ultra-right outfit LAOS which has one MEP, Georgios Georgiou, who has a chance of re-election.

In eastern Europe too the prospects for the far right look mixed. The outgoing parliament has 16 far-right MEPs, ten of them from the homophobic and racist League of Polish Families (LPF). It is difficult to forecast the performance of the far right this time because the political configuration has changed with the formation of a new party, Libertas, led by the bitterly anti-EU Irish millionaire Declan Ganley, which is swallowing up huge chunks of the far right including the LPF and even a motley crew of nazi skinheads.

Three parties will fight the election in Latvia – the ultra-right Osipova Party, which is linked to Russian nazis, the nationalist All for Latvia and the right-wing national conservative LNNK. The Waffen-SS supporting LNNK had four MEPs in the outgoing parliament but is unlikely to have so many this time round. The Lithuanian Centre Party is fielding candidates in Lithuania.

Zmago Jelincic’s Slovene Nation Party (SNS) will fight for all Slovenia’s seven seats, on its strongly anti-migrant, pro-Serbia policies. The far right will also try to make an impact in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, though it is unclear to what effect.

In Slovakia, the extremist Slovak National Party, which wants the rehabilitation of Hitler’s bloodstained wartime puppet Josef Tiso, will campaign for re-election on its anti-Hungarian, anti-Roma and anti-Jewish policies. In the Czech Republic three racist and fascist parties, including the National Party led by the BNP’s friend Petra Edelmannová, are standing without entertaining much hope of election. Their ideas are reciprocated in the fascist Jobbik party in Hungary, which is also assiduously building up its own anti-democratic private army, the Hungarian Guard.

In the two newest member states, the parties that have registered to carry the torch for racism and fascism might be termed “the usual suspects”: the anti-Turkish, antisemitic Attack in Bulgaria and the racist, antisemitic and xenophobic Greater Romania party in Romania.

The number of far-right MEPs looks set to rise in the new parliament but whether they will succeed in forming any official groups is impossible to tell. At its biggest, the ITS was unable to command the support of even half the elected ultra-nationalists, right-wing populists, racists and fascists in the parliament.

The biggest problem the nationalist right has is that it is not internationally minded and many of its protagonists would like nothing better than to slit each other’s throats. All of them might share the same xenophobic, homophobic, racist, antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-Turkish, anti-trade union, anti-EU and Islamophobic mindset and have the policies to match but they stand, largely for nothing other than idiotic ideas about racial superiority and autarchy.

The tragedy is that a few million people will be deluded into wasting their votes on them, which will allow them to get their snouts into the EU financial trough and so make Europe a less pleasant and less humane place to live.

Links:
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com
http://www.stopthebnp.com
http://action.hopenothate.org.uk/content/home/suit

 

EUROPEAN-ELECTION RESULTS
June 2009

AUSTRIA (17 seats) –population 8.3 million

Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ)
engl.: Freedom Party Austria
Leader: Heinz-Christian Strache
Result in the EU elections 2009:
364,206 votes – 12.7% – 2 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
155,856 votes – 6.33% – 1 candidate elected
Results in the last national election 2008:
857,029 votes – 17.5%

Bündnis Zukunft Österreich (BZÖ)
engl.: Alliance for the Future of Austria
Leader: Josef Bucher
Result in the EU elections 2009:
131,213 votes – 4.6% – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2008:
522,933 votes – 10.7%

BELGIUM (22 seats) -population 10.6 million

Vlaams Belang (VB) -former: Vlaams Blok
engl.: Flemish Interest
Leaders: Bruno Valkeniers, Philip Dewinter, Frank Vanhecke, Gerolf Annemans
Result in the EU elections 2009:
648,000 votes – 9.97% – 2 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
930,700 votes – 23.16% (of all Flemish votes) – 3 candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2007:
19% (Cambre of Representatives) and 19.2% (Senate)

Front National (FN)
engl.: National Front
Leaders: Daniël Huygens, Patrick Sessler, Jean-Pierre Bourbouse
Result in the EU elections 2009:
86,000 votes – 1.32% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
181,351 votes – 7.45% (of the French speaking community) – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2007:
5.6% (Cambre of Representatives) and 6% (Senate)

Wallonie D’abord -former: Force Nationale
engl.: Wallonia at First
Leaders: Francis Detraux & Juan Lemmens
Result in the EU elections 2009:
36,000 votes – 0.56% – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2007:
0.63%

BULGARIA (17 seats) -population 7.6 million

Nacionalno Obedinenie Ataka (ATAKA)
engl.: National Union Attack
Leaders: Volen Siderov, Stanislav Stanilov, Pavel Shopov, Dimitar Stoyanov
Result in the EU elections 2009:
308,052 votes – 11.96% – 2 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2007 (after becoming a EU member state):
275,237 votes – 14,20% – 3 candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2005:
296,848 votes – 8.93%

CYPRUS (6 seats) -population 0.8 million

No known far-right candidates

CZECH REPUBLIC (22 seats) -population 10.4 million

Sdruzeni pro Republiku – Republikanska Strana Ceskoslovenska (SPR-RSC) -former: Republikani Miroslava Sladka
engl.: Asociaton for the Republic – Czechoslovak Republican Party
Leader: Miroslav Sladek
Result in the EU elections 2009:
7,492 votes – 0.31% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
15,767 votes – 0.79% – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2002 (did not take part in 2006):
46,325 votes – 0.97%

Delnicka Strana (DS)
engl.: Labour Party
Leader: Tomas Vandas
Result in the EU elections 2009:
25,368 votes – 1.07% – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2006:
12,756 votes – 0.23% (together with the party ‘Law and Order’ – PaS)

Narodni Strana (NS)
engl.: National Party
Leader: Petra Edelmannova
Result in the EU elections 2009:
6,263 votes – 0.26% – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2006:
9,341 votes – 0.17%

DENMARK (13 seats) -population 5.5 million

Dansk Folkeparti
engl.: Danish People Party
Leader: Pia Kjaersgaard
Result in the EU elections 2009:
357,776 votes – 15.3% – 2 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
128,789 votes – 6.8% – 1 candidate elected
Votes in the last national election 2007:
479,532 votes – 13.9%

ESTONIA (6 seats) -population 1.3 million

No known far-right candidates

FINLAND (13 seats) -population 5.2 million

Perussuomalaiset (FN) [right-wing populist]
engl.: True Finns
Leader: Timo Soini
Result in the EU elections 2009:
162,571 votes – 9.8% – 1 candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2007:
112,256 votes – 4.1%

FRANCE (72 seats) -population 62.4 million

Front National (FN)
engl.: National Front
Leader: Jean-Marie Le Pen
Result in the EU elections 2009:
1,091,682 votes – 6.3% – 3 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
1,684,792 votes – 9.81% – 7 candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2007:
1. round/1,116,005 votes – 4.29%; 2. round/ 17,107 votes – 0.08%
Votes in the last presidential election 2007:
3,835,029 votes – 10.44% (candidate was Jean-Marie Le Pen)

Parti de la France (PDF)
engl.: Party for France
Leader: Carl Lang
founded by the ‘National Front’ dissident Carl Lang in February 2009
Result in the EU elections 2009:
63,096 votes – 0.37% – no candidates elected

Parti Anti Sioniste (PAS)
engl.: Anti Zionist Party
Leader: Yahia Gouasmi
founded in 2009
Result in the EU elections 2009:
36,398 votes – 0.21% – no candidates elected

GERMANY (99 seats) -population 82.0 million

Die Republikaner (REP)
engl.: The Republicans
Leader: Rolf Schlierer
Result in the EU elections 2009:
347,897 votes – 1.3% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
485,691 votes – 1.9% – no candidates elected
Votes in the last national election 2005:
266,101 votes – 0.6%

Deutsche Volksunion (DVU)
engl.: German People’s Union
Leader: Matthias Faust
Result in the EU elections 2009:
111,631 votes – 0.4% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 1999:
601,192 votes – 1.2%

Bürgerbewegung Solidarität [La Rouche movement]
engl.: Civil Movement Solidarity
Result in the EU elections 2009:
10,926 votes – 0.0% – no candidates elected

GREECE (22 seats) -population 11.2 million

Laikos Orthodoksos Synagermos (LAOS)
engl.: Popular Othodox Rally
Leader: Georgios Karatzaferis
Result in the EU elections 2009:
366,615 votes – 7.2% – 2 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
249,449 votes – 4.11% – 1 candidate elected
Result in the last national election 2007:
271,809 votes – 3,8%

Chrysi Avgi
engl.: Golden Dawn
Leader: Nikolaos Michaloliakos
Result in the EU elections 2009:
23,566 votes – 0.46% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
under the name ‘Patriotic Alliance’ (Golden Dawn & junta supporters)
10,543 votes – 0.17% – No candidates elected

HUNGARY (22 seats) -population 10.0 million

Jobbik Magyarorszagert Mozgalom (Jobbik)
engl.: Movement for a Better/Righter Hungary
Leaders: Gabor Vona, Levente Muranyi, Cxaba Gyüre, Zoltan Balczo, Csanada Szegedi, Gabor Szabo, Peter Szilvasi
Result in the EU elections 2009:
427,213 votes – 14.77% – 3 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
under the name ‘MIEP – Jobbik the third way’ (Jobbik & Party for Hungarian Justice and Life)
72,177 votes – 2.35% – no candidates elected

ITALY (72 seats) -population 60.0 million

Lega Nord (LN) [right-wing populist]
engl.: Northern League
Leader: Umberto Bossi & Angelo Alessandri
Result in the EU elections 2009:
3,126,915 votes – 10.2% – 9 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
1,615,834 votes – 5.0% – 4 candidate elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
3,026,844 votes – 8.3%

Fiamma Tricolore – Destra Sociale (FT)
engl.: Tricolour Flame – Social Right
Leader: Luca Romagnoli
Result in the EU elections 2009:
244,982 votes – 0.79% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
236,016 votes – 0.7% – 1 candidate elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
885,226 votes – 2.5% (in alliance with ‘The Right’)

Forza Nuova (FN)
engl.: New Force
Leader: Roberto Fiore
Result in the EU elections 2009:
146,619 votes – 0.47% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
Roberto Fiore & Alessandra Mussolini took part with the in 2006 dissolved party ‘Social Alternative’
398,036 votes – 1.2% – 1 candidate elected (first Mussolini – replaced by Fiore)
Result in the last national election 2008:
108,837 votes – 0.3%

IRELAND (12 seats) -population 5.9 million

No known far-right candidates

LATVIA (8 seats) -population 2.3 million

Tevzemei un Brivibai/LNNK (TB/LNNK)
engl.: Union for Fatherland and Freedom
Leader: Roberts Zile
Result in the EU elections 2009:
58,997 votes – 7.45% – 1 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
170,819 votes – 29.82% – 4 candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
62,989 votes – 6.94%

Visu Latvijai!
engl.: All for Latvia!
Leaders: Imants Paradnieks & Raivis Dzintars
Result in the EU elections 2009:
22,240 votes – 2.81% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
13,469 votes – 1.48%

Osipova Partija
Leaders: Jefgenijs Osipovs & Sergejs Denisovs
Result in the EU elections 2009:
2,101 votes – 0.27% – no candidates elected


LITHUANIA
 (12 seats) -population 3.3 million

Lietuvos Centro Partija (LCP)
engl.: Lithuanian Center Party
Leaders: Arunas Grumadas, Eugenijus Skrupskelis, Arunas Gumuliauskas, Alvydas Valeisa, Romualdes Ozolas
Result in the EU elections 2009:
16,962 votes – 3.09% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
8,669 votes – 0.7%

LUXEMBOURG (6 seats) -population 0.5 million

No known far-right candidates

MALTA (5 seats) –population 0.4 million

Imperium Europa
engl.: Empire Europe
Leader: Norman Lowell
Result in the EU elections 2009:
4,351 votes – 1.47% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
1,603 votes – 0.59% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
84 votes – 0.03%

NETHERLANDS (25 seats) -population 16.5 million

Partij Voor De Vrijheid (PVV) [right-wing populist]
engl.: Freedom Party
Leader: Geert Wilders
Result in the EU elections 2009:
769,125 votes – 17.00% – 4 candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
579,490 votes – 5.9%

POLAND (22 seats) -population 38.1 million

Libertas Polska (LP)
engl.: Liberty Poland
Leaders: Declan Ganley (official chairman), Daniel Pawlowiec, Wojciech Wierzejski, Artur Zawisza, Piotr Slusarcyk
Result in the EU elections 2009:
83,000 votes – 1.14% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
The candidates on the Libertas list are from different Polish parties, but it mainly consist of members from the ‘League of Polish Families’ that stand in the 2004 elections. These are the past results of the ‘League of Polish Families’
969,689 votes – 15.92% – 10 candidates elected

PORTUGAL (22 seats) -population 10.6 million

Partido Nacional Renovador (PNR)
engl.: National Renewal Party
Leader: Jose Pinto Coelho
Result in the EU elections 2009:
13,037 votes – 0.04% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
8640 votes – 0.1% – no candidate elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
9,374 votes – 0.16%

ROMANIA (33 seats) -population 21.5 million

Partidul Romania Mare (PRM)
engl.: Greater Romania Party
Leader: Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Result in the EU elections 2009:
419,094 votes – 8.7% – 3 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2007 (after becoming a EU member state):
After Romania joined the EU PRM initially got 5 seats in the EU Parliament, which where all lost after the official election in 2007
4.2% – no candidate elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
3.15%

SLOVAKIA (13 seats) -population 5.4 million

Slovenska Narodna Strana (SNS)
engl.: Slovak National Party
Leaders: Jan Slota & Anna Belousova
Result in the EU elections 2009:
45,960 votes – 5.55% – 1 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
in alliance with ‘True Slovak National Party’
14,150 votes – 2.01% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
270,230 votes – 3.15%

SLOVENIA (7 seats) -population 2.0 million

Slovenska Nacionalna Stranka (SNS)
engl.: Slovene National Party
Leaders: Zmago Jelincic
Result in the EU elections 2009:
13,088 votes – 2.88% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
56,832 votes – 5.4%

SPAIN (50 seats) -population 46.1 million

Alternativa Espanola (AES)
engl.: Spanish Alternative
Leader: Rafael Lopez Dieguez
Result in the EU elections 2009:
19,678 votes – 0.13% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
7,078 votes – 0.03%

Falange Espanola de las J.O.N.S. (FEJONS)
engl.: Spanish Falange of the J.O.N.S.
Leader: Diego Marquez Horrillo
Result in the EU elections 2009:
10,032 votes – 0.06% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
4,308 votes – 0.03% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
13,413 votes – 0.05%

Democracia Nacional (DN)
engl.: National Democracy
Leader: Manuel Canduela
Result in the EU elections 2009:
10,071 votes – 0.06% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
6,175 votes – 0.04% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
12,588 votes – 0.05%

Frente Nacional (FN)
engl.: National Front
Leader: Jose Fernando Cantalapiedra
Result in the EU elections 2009:
9,431 votes – 0.06% – no candidates elected

Falange Autentica (FA)
engl.: Authentic Falange
Leader: Enrique Antigüedad
Result in the EU elections 2009:
5,122 votes – 0.03% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
1,990 votes – 0.01% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2008:
4,842 votes – 0.02%

Moviemiento Social Republicano (MSR)
engl.: Social Republican Movement
Leader: Juan Antonio Llopart Senent
Result in the EU elections 2009:
9,948 votes – 0.06% – no candidates elected

SWEDEN (18 seats) -population 9.2 million

Sverigedemokraterna (SD)
engl.: Sweden Democrats
Leaders: Jimmie Akesson & Björn Söder
Result in the EU elections 2009:
99,879 votes – 3.3% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
28,303 votes – 1.13% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
162,463 votes – 2.93%

Nationaldemokraterna (ND)
engl.: National Democrats
Leaders: Marc Abrahamsson & Vavra Suk
Result in the EU elections 2009:
1,329 votes – 0.04% – no candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
7,209 votes – 0.29% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
3,064 votes – 0.06%

Sveriges Nationella Demokratiska Parti
engl.: Swedens National Democratic Party
Leader: Pawel Grunneholm
Result in the EU elections 2009:
57 votes – 0.00% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2006:
68 votes – statistically insignificant (0.00%)

UNITED KINGDOM (72 seats) -61.6 million

British National Party (BNP)
Leaders: Nick Griffin & Simon Darby
Result in the EU elections 2009:
943,598 votes – 6.2% – 2 candidates elected
Result in the EU elections 2004:
808,200 votes – 4.9% – no candidates elected
Result in the last national election 2005:
192,746 votes – 0.7%

This information was compiled with the support of many organisations active within the UNITED and SEARCHLIGHT networks!