In the late 1980s, Vasilis Stigkas first joined
New Democracy for a few years at the time when
Konstantinos Mitsotakis was
Prime Minister. Unsatisfied with the party, he followed then
Foreign Minister Antonis Samaras into his new
Political Spring party, after the latter was dismissed from his position over his stance on the
Macedonia naming dispute. In the early 2000s, Stigkas joined the
LAOS party of
Georgios Karatzaferis. He left after the party's support for the
memorandum in 2012 while it participated in the
coalition government of Lucas Papademos. centrist
Vasilis Leventis and
Golden Dawner Ioannis Lagos. For the
European parliamentary election of May 2019, an electoral alliance was announced with the party
Union of Centrists of
Vasilis Leventis. Stigkas received 752 votes nationwide. In the
national legislative elections of 2019, Stigkas participated once more on the
Boeotia ballot list of the Union of Centrists, receiving 35 votes. In December 2020, the formation of a coalition was announced by ELASYN, the
Popular Hellenic Patriotic Union (LEPEN), the "Spartans" party, the United Front of Greek Ideology of Compatriots (EMEIS) and the
Front Line, with the prospect of a joint electoral descent with the name
K.Y.M.A of Hellenism. In February 2021, the coalition announced the collaboration of the formation with the retired captain and chief of the Popular Citizens Movement (LAKIP) Andreas Petropoulos. On 8 June 2023, the party Spartans was allowed to participate in the upcoming
June 2023 Greek legislative election by the
Supreme Court of Greece. Following the exclusion of the far-right
National Party – Greeks of
Ilias Kasidiaris from both the
May and June 2023 elections, Kasidiaris announced his "full support" for the party of Stigkas. Subsequently, the party gained a 4.68% in the
June 2023 Greek legislative election, winning a total of 12 seats in the new parliament. The party gained significant traction in national polls in mid-June, following an endorsement on
Twitter by
Ilias Kasidiaris, a former
Golden Dawn MP and
nationalist politician who had been convicted in the trial declaring Golden Dawn to be a criminal organisation. Kasidiaris urged his supporters to vote for Spartans in the
June 2023 election. Given that many of its members of parliament have previously been associated with either
Golden Dawn or Kasidiaris' party
Greeks for the Fatherland, which was banned from participating in the 2023 elections, Spartans has been seen as a continuation of
Golden Dawn. Some sources have even labelled it as Kasidiaris' "
trojan horse". In early September, two more MPs became independent, leaving the party with 7 out of its original 12 seats. On 7 September, four of the newly independent MPs were reintegrated into the party's parliamentary group. Since August 2023, a prolonged internal party crisis all but dissolved the Spartiate parliamentary group. The crisis erupted over the support of most of the party's MPs for Ilias Kasidiaris and his candidacy for the
Municipality of Athens in the upcoming
local elections. Party leader
Vasilis Stigkas reacted to these initiatives by his MPs and expelled three of them, referring to MPs
led by extra-parliamentary foreign centres acting like the Greek mafia. Stigkas' allegations prompted a judicial investigation by the Prosecutor of Greece’s Supreme Civil and Criminal Court, leading to the indictment of the entire parliamentary group—except Vasilis Stigkas—for electoral fraud, with Ilias Kasidiaris also charged for instigating the fraud. In May 2025, the Court of Appeal unanimously acquitted all 11 accused MPs, including Kasidiaris, finding no evidence that they had misled voters." On 27 May, the Appeals Prosecutor's Office filed an appeal against the first-instance decision, deeming its reasoning erroneous. According to a decision by the
Special Highest Court, three Spartans MPs were stripped of their office and ceased to be members of the Greek Parliament. This decision was based on the opinion that these MPs were elected by misleading the electorate, concealing that their true leader and guide was Ilias Kasidiaris. The party's parliamentary group, now consisting of only two members, was dissolved on 12 June 2025, as it fell below the threshold of five MPs required to form a parliamentary group. The two MPs joined the Independents. The party was barred from participating in the
2024 European Parliament elections, an action that was endorsed by
New Democracy,
PASOK,
New Left and
Syriza while it was rejected by
Afroditi Latinopoulou and her
Voice of Reason party. == Ideology ==