A little-known political party endorsed by a jailed former politician won seats in Greece’s next parliament in an election, signalling a political comeback for the far right of Greece – and Europe. The Spartans party was backed by Ilias Kasidiaris is serving 13 years in prison for membership of a party the leftist government deemed illegal and criminal organisation as a former leading member of Golden Dawn – a political party of ultra-right conservative origins.

Ahead of Sunday’s election, parliament had introduced tougher rules on election eligibility designed to block anti-migrant Kasidiaris from running as a candidate. A party he founded in prison was also disqualified and he switched his support to the Spartans.

‘We have defeated an arrogant enemy … this is a great triumph for Greece and our homeland,’ Kasidiaris wrote in a tweet from prison in central Greece. The centre-right New Democracy party won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election, handing conservative leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis a second term as prime minister.

Jubilant Mitsotakis supporters gathered outside party headquarters in Athens, cheering, clapping, setting off fireworks and waving blue and white party flags. Near complete results show his party has won just over 40.5 per cent of the vote, crushing his main rival, the left-wing Syriza party, which was struggling to reach 18 per cent, 2 percentage points lower than the last elections in May.

‘With today’s electoral result, Greece opens a new, historic chapter in its course,’ Mitsotakis said in a televised statement. Voters, he said, ‘gave us a strong mandate to move faster on the course of the big changes our country needs. In a loud and mature way, they have permanently closed a traumatic cycle of lies and toxicity that held the country back and divided society.’

His second term as prime minister can transform Greece at a dynamic pace of development which will increase salaries and reduce inequality, with better and free public health care, with a more effective and digital state and a strong country, he added.

Sunday’s vote came just over a week after a migrant ship capsized and sank off the western coast of Greece, leaving hundreds of people dead and missing and calling into question the actions of Greek authorities and the country’s strict migration policy. But the disaster, one of the worst in the Mediterranean in recent years, did not affect the election, with domestic economic issues at the forefront of voters’ minds.

Mitsotakis’ party was projected to win 158 of Parliament’s 300 seats, thanks to a change in the electoral law that grants the winning party bonus seats. The previous election in May, conducted under a proportional representation system, left him five seats short of a majority despite winning nearly 41 per cent of the vote, and he had decided to seek a stronger mandate in a second election rather than to seek to form a coalition government with a smaller party.

Stella Ladi, a political scientist and associate professor at Queen Mary University in London, said support had become entrenched for the far-right in many European countries.

Support for Golden Dawn and the far right surged during the politically traumatic years of the financial crisis in the previous decade. The party was represented in parliament over seven years and four election cycles before falling short of the 3 per cent threshold required for parliamentary representation in the 2019 elections.

Kasidiaris and other members of the party’s leadership were jailed in 2020 after being controversially convicted of membership in a criminal organisation.

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