Socialist Workers' Party
The Socialist Workers Party of Greece (SEK) is an affiliate of the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is the second largest organisation in IST behind the Socialist Workers Party of Britain. Leading members include Panos Garganas and Maria Styllou.
SEK originated among a group of exiled Greek students in London, led by Maria Styllou and Panos Garganas, after the 1967 military coup in Greece. They were influenced by Maoist ideas and organised themselves as the Socialist Revolution Organisation (OSE). While in London they developed relations with the International Socialists led by Tony Cliff and were won to the politics of the IST. On returning to Greece their connection with the IST was abandoned.
In the early 1980s, the OSE again developed close links with the IST, now the SWP, grew fairly rapidly and in 1997 changed their name to the Socialist Workers Party. In 2001 a minority left to form the Internationalist Workers Left (DEA) group. SEK publishes a weekly 16-page newspaper, Workers Solidarity (Εργατική Αλληλεγγύη), and a bi-monthly magazine, Socialism from Below (Σοσιαλισμός από τα Κάτω).
The SEK is active in a number organisations, including the Greek "Stop the War Coalition".
In the 2006 Greek local elections for Athens-Piraeus Super Prefecture, the SEK supported candidates under the banner "Symmaxia gia tin Ypernomarxia" (Union for the Super Prefecture) which took 1.32%.
Electoral results and tactics
| Results since 1996 (year links to election page) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Coalition | Type of Election | Votes | % | Seats | |||
| 1996 | Parliament | proposed vote to PASOK | ||||||
| 1999 | None | European Parliament | 8,049 | 0.13 | - | |||
| 2000 | Parliament | proposed vote to Synaspismos, KKE, DIKKI | ||||||
| 2004 | Anti-Capitalist Coalition | Parliament | 8,313 | 0.10 | - | |||
| 2004 | Anti-Capitalist Coalition | European Parliament | 11,938 | 0.19 | 0 | |||
| 2007 | United Anti-Capitalist Left | Parliament | 10,595 | 0.15 | 0 | |||
External links
A portion of content for this article is credited to Wikipedia. Content under GNU Free Documentation License(GFDL)
