State’s mechanisms. If one adds the ties of some of the protagonists in these incidents with the political realm, more speciically with the traditional political right wing, then this becomes more clear. Fiteen years ater his light above Albanian territories, Vrakas became a candidate of the New Democracy parliamentary election list in the largest constituency of the country, the “Athens B” constituency, during the 2009 general election. Makis Voridis, a defence attorney in the “MAVI” case and an active supporter of nationalist positions on the issue of “Northern Epirus” (southern Albania), as well as the oicial delegate of Jean-Marie Le Pen in Greece until quite recently, was later elected as an MP with New Democracy, became the spokesperson of the party’s delegation in the Parliament, and inally received a minister’s portfolio in the late 2011-early 2012 government. During the early 2000s he had worked as a celebrated TV panelist on issues of immigration and terrorism. In the recent crisis years, as the ultra-right claimed a more active political role, this virtual immunity escalated in an unprecedented way: all but two of the coast guard members were acquitted of all charges. Members of paramilitary organizations became spokespersons for ultra-right associations in the media. A number of military oicers with explicitly racist and anti-democratic views became ministers. Thus, “isolated” incidents such as those mentioned above are important in the continuum of downplaying, tolerating, and rewarding the “droplets”. They reveal an increasingly strong anti-democratic current within the State apparatuses. In the last instance, they reveal a continuum between state and parastate only partly exposed by the recent dismantlement of Golden Dawn. A highlight in these developments was covered in an article published in the Sunday newspaper To Vima tis Kyriakis in September 2012, according to which the chief of the Hellenic Army General Staf from 2009 to 2011, Frangoulis Frangos, had prepared for a coup d’etat in 2011, which was averted only at the last minute.79 (The report proceeded from an earlier French article published in Libération under the headline, “Papandreou chose the referendum in order to prevent a military coup,” 5 November 2011.) According to the Vima report, during the autumn 2011 negotiations in Brussels towards the eventual agreement with the Troika on the so-called “Second Memorandum” and the terms of Private Sector Involvement (PSI) in Greek debt, the national defence minister of the government then under George Papandreou, Panos Beglitis, was barricaded as he entered a church in Thessaloniki. The incident was considered to have been organized by ultraright groups and ultra-religious organizations aided by retired and active armed forces oicers. The newspaper revealed that in the atmosphere of ierce “antiMemorandum” and anti-government protests all over the country, which at the time prompted evocations of the “Arab Spring”, the secret services had informed the prime minister about “suspicious moves” by ultra-right elements. Later, a nationalist right wing politician admitted in private conversations that a few days before these events, he had been asked by a retired army oicer whether he would be ready to participate in a possible interim military government. 79. 68 | See http://www.tovima.gr/politics/article/?aid=477185. ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG