Pasokification is the decline of centre-left social-democratic political parties in European and other Western countries during the 2010s, often accompanied by the rise of nationalist, left-wing and right-wing populist alternatives. In Europe, the share of votes for such parties was at its 70-year lowest in 2015.
The term originates from the Greek party PASOK, which saw a declining share of the vote in national elections — from 43.92% in 2009 to 13.18% in May 2012, to 12.28% in June 2012 and 4.68% in 2015 — due to its poor handling of the Greek government-debt crisis and implementation of harsh austerity measures. Simultaneously, the left-wing anti-austerity Syriza party saw a growth in vote share and influence. Since PASOK's decline, the term has been applied to similar declines for other social-democratic and Third Way parties.
In 2020s, SPD winning the 2021 German federal election, Labour Party and PASOK-KINAL performing well in the polls for the upcoming United Kingdom and Greek elections respectively led to discussions about the possibility of "De-Pasokification", "reverse pasokification", "kinalification."
In Europe
Austria
The Social Democratic Party of Austria lost 5.7 percentage points in the 2019 Austrian legislative election, resulting in a share of 21.2%, the party's worst election result since World War II. In the same election, the Austrian People's Party gained 6 percentage points, with a share of 37.5%, its best since 2002.
Bulgaria
The Bulgarian Socialist Party lost 12.2 percentage points and fell from 80 to 43 seats in the April 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election. In the July 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election the party lost another 1.6 percentage points, returning to parliament with just 36 seats. In the November 2021 Bulgarian general election, the BSP lost a further 3.27 percentage points and returned to parliament with 26 seats, their worst result since democratic reforms; however, the party joined the new coalition government.
Croatia
The Social Democratic Party of Croatia had in the 2019 European Parliament election (18.7%) their worst EP election result, in the 2020 parliamentary election (24.9%) their worst parliamentary election result since 2003 and in the first round of the 2019–20 presidential election they had their worst result since 2000 but in the end they won the second round.
Czech Republic
The Czech Social Democratic Party lost much of its support in the 2017 Czech legislative election, falling from 50 in the previous general election to just 15 seats out of 200. They did even worse in 2021, with its vote share falling below the 5% threshold required for representation in the legislature. KSČM also fell below the threshold in 2021. Meanwhile, ANO 2011 gained 31 seats, and the Civic Democratic Party gained 9 seats in 2017.
France
The Socialist Party's decline since its victory in the 2012 presidential election has been described as an example of Pasokification. By 2016, then-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. In the 2017 presidential election, Socialist Party candidate Benoît Hamon suffered an historically poor result, placing fifth with 6.4% of the vote. In the 2017 legislative election a month later, the Socialist Party suffered the worst losses of any party, falling from 280 to 30 seats. The Socialist-led centre-left faction received 9.5% of the vote during the first round and only 45 seats overall. In the 2019 European elections, the 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 Europe Ecology – The Greens and the left-wing populist La France Insoumise. In the 2022 French presidential election, Socialist Party candidate, Anne Hidalgo, received only 1.7% of the vote.