Pasokification is a neologism used to describe the decline in vote share for centre-left and social-democratic political parties in Europe and other Western countries during the 2010s, often accompanied by the rise of nationalistic and left and right-wing populist political parties. The share of votes for centre-left parties in Europe was at a 70-year low in 2015.
Pasokification originates from the PASOK party of Greece whose vote share in national elections reduced from 43.9% in 2009 to 4.7% in 2015, while the anti-austerity left-wing Syriza party saw a simultaneous growth in vote share and influence. Since PASOK's decline, the term has been applied to declines of other centre-left, social democratic and Third Way parties within a similar timeframe.
In the early 2020s, some centre-left parties such as the New Zealand Labour Party, Social Democratic Party of Germany, Australian Labor Party and UK Labour Party won elections in each of their countries in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024 respectively. Additionally, PASOK-KINAL improved their performance in the 2023 Greek elections. This has resulted in discussions on the possibility of a "de-Pasokification", "reverse Pasokification", or "Kinalification" trend.
Background Pasokification originates from the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) of Greece, which was formerly the largest centre-left party in the Hellenic Parliament between 1977 and 2012, and the dominant party in Greece from 1981 to 2004. PASOK's vote share in national elections reduced from 43.9% in 2009 to 13.2% in May 2012, to 12.3% in June 2012, to 4.7% in January 2015 — due to its perceived poor handling of the Greek government-debt crisis and implementation of harsh austerity measures. Simultaneously, PASOK was replaced as Greece's main left-wing party by Syriza, an anti-austerity party founded in 2004, that saw a consistent growth in vote share and influence.
PASOK's rapid decline in Greece led to comparisons with similar declines in vote share by centre-left, social democratic, and Third Way parties across Europe during the 2010s.
In Europe Austria The Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) had its vote share reduced from 26.9% in 2017 to 21.2% in 2019, resulting in a lost of 5.7 percentage points in two years. The SPÖ's main rival, the centre-right conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), gained 6 percentage points with a share of 37.5%, its best since 2002.
The 2024 election saw the SPÖ win just 21.1%, a reduction of 0.1 percentage points, marking its worst result ever since the restoration of democracy after World War II in 1945. The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) placed first, winning 28.8% of the vote and achieving its best result in the party's history. The governing ÖVP lost 19 seats, while its coalition partner, left-wing The Greens, lost 10 seats. The centrist NEOS improved from 2019, rising from 15 to 18 seats.
The SPÖ's declining vote share has been attributed to growing anti-immigration sentiment in Austria, and a number of internal disputes between "left-wing" and "right-wing" factions within the party over the issue.
Bulgaria The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) has seen its vote share fluctuate wildly since the restoration of democracy in 1990, but its vote share has been consistently low since the political crisis in Bulgaria that began in 2021. The BSP won 27.2% in 2017 and 15% in April 2021, a loss of 12.2 percentage points and falling from 80 to 43 seats in the National Assembly. The BSP's vote share has remained low in the frequent subsequent elections: it lost another 1.6 percentage points winning just 36 seats in July 2021, and a further 3.27 percentage points winning 26 seats in November 2021. It won a record low of 6.8% with 19 seats in June 2024. The BSP increased its vote share by 0.1 percentage points four months later in October 2024, entering into a predominantly right-wing coalition government as part of the BSP – United Left.
The BSP's poor performance since 2021 has been attributed to internal disputes within the party, including a perceived straying away from socialist principles towards a more centrist position and disagreements on certain social issues.
Croatia The Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SPD) saw its vote share decline in the 2010s after being elected into government with 61 of 151 seats in the Croatian Parliament in 2011,. It won 32.3% of the vote with 42 seats in 2015, a loss of 8.1 percentage points and 19 seats in the Croatian Parliament. This further decreased to 33.8% and 38 seats in 2016. The SDP won 18.7% in the 2019 European Parliament election, their worst election result for the European Parliament, though it gained 2 seats. The SDP won 24.9% in 2020 parliamentary election, winning 33 seats, their worst parliamentary election result since 2003. In the first round of the 2019–20 presidential election, SDP candidate Zoran Milanović received the party's worst result since 2000, but ultimately won the second round. The SPD's vote share increased slightly to 25.4% with 38 seats in 2024.
The SPD's poor performance since 2011 has been attributed to internal disputes, particularly heated clashes between supporters of Peđa Grbin and Davor Bernardić which resulted in several MPs being expelled from the party. The Social Democrats was founded by former SPD members in 2022.
Czech Republic Social Democracy (SOCDEM), known as the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) until 2023, saw a total collapse in support during the 2010s. The CSSD won 20.5% of the vote with 50 of 200 seats in the Chamber of Deputies in 2013, which dropped to 7.3% with 15 seats in 2017. The CSSD won 4.7% with no seats in 2021, dropping below the 5% threshold required for representation in the Chamber of Deputies, slipping to a further 4.3% and no seats in 2024. The far-left Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia also fell below the threshold in 2021. SOCDEM has had one seat in the Senate of the Czech Republic since 2022. Membership of the party since 1990 has dropped from a peak of 24,497 in 2009 to 3,090 in 2025. Meanwhile, in 2024, the right-wing ANO won 80 seats, the centre-right Civic Democratic Party won 52 seats, and the liberal Mayors and Independents won 22 seats.
SOCDEM's extremely poor performance since 2017 has been attributed to a growth of anti-establishment and anti-immigration sentiment in the Czech Republic, losing voters to ANO and other parties with popular social-democratic policies but stronger stances against immigration.
France The Socialist Party (PS) was the largest left-wing party in France from the 1970s until the 2010s, and used to be one of the two major political parties in the country. PS has seen a steep decline since its victory in the 2012 presidential election, which has been described as an example of Pasokification. By 2016, President François Hollande's approval rating was just 4%, and he became the first president in the history of the Fifth Republic not to run for re-election. Hollande's unpopularity drew from his pursuit of "pro-business" and austerity policies after running on a left-wing platform. PS presidential candidate Benoît Hamon suffered an historically poor result in the 2017 presidential election, placing fifth with 6.4% of the vote, behind Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the left-wing populist La France Insoumise. In the 2017 legislative election a month later, PS suffered the worst losses of any party, falling from 280 to 30 seats. The PS-led centre-left faction received 9.5% of the vote during the first round and only 45 seats overall."Montebourg: "Le PS est sur la route du Pasok grec". In the 2019 European elections, PS allied with a number of minor centre-left parties, but still placed only sixth. It became the smallest party to win seats, receiving 6.2% of the vote. It was surpassed by both the left-wing Europe Ecology – The Greens and La France Insoumise. In the 2022 French presidential election, PS candidate Anne Hidalgo received only 1.7% of the vote. In the legislative elections, France's leftist forces combined into one electoral unit called NUPES, anticipating fallout from poor results in the years prior.
In the 2024 snap French legislative elections - called by centrist President Emmanuel Macron due to strong results for the far-right National Rally in the 2024 European Parliament elections - NUPES was abandoned due to differences on foreign policy triggered by the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2023. A new similar alliance called the New Popular Front (NFP) manifested comprising the main left-wing parties in France, with the distinction that they did not declare a candidate for Prime Minister. While NFP did not win a majority, they surprisingly emerged as the single biggest party, having employed an informal cooperation agreement with Macron's renamed Renaissance party to defeat the apparently ascendant far-right.
The Socialist Party's decline has been attributed to growing division among the left-wing in France, the unpopularity of Hollande's presidency, and the appeal of alternative parties on the centre and right-wing for its traditional voters.
Finland The Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) began to lose votes in 2007, winning 21.4% of the vote and 45 of 200 seats in the Parliament of Finland, slipping to 19.1% with 42 seats in 2011. The SDP achieved their worst results to date in 2015 winning 16.5% with 34 seats, becoming the fourth-largest party in parliament. Although they managed to become the strongest force in 2019 for the first time in a decade, they also had their second worst success in their history, with 17.7% and 40 seats. Despite another increase in the vote share 19.9% with 43 seats in 2023, the SDP lost power to a coalition of the centre-right National Coalition Party and right-wing Finns Party.
The SDP had been declining for decades on the municipal level, having been the party with the most seats of representation in municipal councils as well as the top vote share from the 1950s to 2000. Following the 2008 municipal elections, the National Coalition Party became the strongest in terms of the vote share and the Centre Party has had the most individual representatives, partly due to dominance in agrarian and rural based municipalities. Additionally, the general decline of SDP's vote share in municipal elections can perhaps be explained by the overall decline of the number of municipalities from roughly 600 in the 1940s to about 500 in 1970 and the mid 300s in the early 2000s. The SDP performed very well in the 2025 municipal elections, their best result since 2004, suggesting that the party was able to defy the Pasokification trend. This has been at least partly attributed to the winning voters from the Finns Party due to their support for austerity measures to curb deficit spending, which proved to be highly unpopular and was strongly opposed by the SDP.
The Åland Social Democrats nearly halved their vote share between 2011 and 2019, from 18.5% to 9.1%, respectively, though they did experience a minor recovery to 12.8% in 2023.
Germany