Indicator history

In the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, a neo-Nazi type of party called ‘Ethniko Laiko Metopo’ (ELAM) founded in 2008 contested the elections and received 663 votes (0.22 percent); at the time it received no media coverage. The main discussion lines of ELAM produced the usual racist slogans contained in the Greek neo-Nazi and extreme Right papers and magazines, claiming that it is the only party that speaks for the “liberation of our enslaved lands, the ending of the privileges of the ‘greedy’ Turkish-Cypriots and for a Europe of Nations and traditions which belongs to the real Europeans and not to the ‘third-worldly’ [backward] illegal immigrants”. In the national parliamentary elections of 2011 ELAM received 4,354 votes, scoring 1,08% of the votes, the largest percentage amongst the parties that did not elect an MP. This, in spite the general admission that ELAM is behind several racist attacks against unsuspecting migrants and Turkish Cypriots and taking place in public space under broad daylight. ELAM describes its ideology as "popular and social nationalism" and promoting Greek nationalism. The mainsteam newspaper Cyprus Mail describes ELAM as an "extreme right wing party", as "ultra right-wing". An NGO called the Antifascist Initiative uses the words "far right, nationalist and racist organisation" and "neo-Nazi gang".

ELAM has been the subject of controversy in the Cypriot media and the broader  political scene, as it has been repeatedly connected with promoting racism and being involved in acts of racial violence. In July 2010 it was reported that after the condemnation ceremonies against the Turkish invasion of 1974 on the 20th of July, people with ELAM t-shirts had attacked a Nigerian man in Makariou street in Nicosia. On December 28, 2010, ELAM organized a march against Turkish Cypriots and illegal migrants. On the 19th of March in 2011, eyewitnesses reported that members of ELAM beat up a lottery seller in Nicosia’s central high street, after a disagreement over political views. However, ELAM has officially opposed its association with the violent incidents, noticing that no ELAM member has been convicted for the specific crimes, further accusing the media for intentionally connecting ELAM with the racial incidents. Its manifesto proclaims that the movement promotes a strict anti-federalist solution concerning the Cyprus problem, a zero-toleration anti-immigration policy and Hellenistic education.