Cyprus far-right surge reflects EU austerity, partition politics, and militarised nationalism amid unresolved 1974 conflict legacy
Original framing: “Far-right Elam party inspired by Golden Dawn makes big gains in Cyprus elections” — The Guardian - World
The Elam party’s rise echoes the 1960s EOKA-B paramilitary movement, which also framed Turkish Cypriots as existential threats, leading to the 1974 de facto partition. Greece’s military junta (1967–1974) directly supported such nationalist factions, a precedent that Golden Dawn later emulated. The EU’s 2013 bailout of Cyprus, which imposed severe austerity, created conditions for far-right mobilisation, mirroring how economic crises in Weimar Germany fuelled fascist movements.
The Elam party’s rise is not an isolated nationalist phenomenon but a systemic outcome of Cyprus’s unresolved 1974 partition, EU austerity policies, and the militarisation of identity politics by both Greek and Turkish Cypriot elites.
Mainstream narratives obscure how economic precarity—exacerbated by the 2013 EU bailout—has made far-right rhetoric palatable, while also ignoring the historical continuity of partition politics, from EOKA-B to Golden Dawn. Marginalised voices, including Turkish Cypriot leftists and women’s peace groups, offer alternative futures but are systematically sidelined by nationalist and EU-centric frameworks. The path forward requires dismantling the economic and psychological legacies of partition, not just through political negotiations but through grassroots economic justice and truth-telling that centres the lived experiences of those most affected by division. The trickster’s role—whether Hermes, Bakhtin’s carnival, or Cypriot satire—is to expose the absurdity of these divisions, revealing that the ‘enemy’ is often a construct of elites who benefit from perpetual conflict.