Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party fields an 11-percentage point lead over ruling SYRIZA in a latest opinion poll released this week.
The poll was commissioned and published in the Athens daily “Efimerida ton Syntakton” (Journalists’ Gazette), and conducted by the firm Prorata.
Specifically, in terms of parties’ electoral influence, 28 percent of respondents favored ND (up from 26 percent in a similar poll in September 2016), followed by SYRIZA with 17 percent (18 percent). The Communist Party figured in third place with 13 percent (11 percent), a number significantly higher than what the party has garnered in recent polls by other pollsters.
A socialist PASOK-led grouping is fourth with 10 percent (12 percent in September 2016); centrist Potami 9 percent (9 percent); ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) 8 percent (9 percent), and the Union of Centrists 7 percent (8 percent).
What’s interesting about the results of this specific poll is the fact that it gives respondents’ preference for three small out-of-Parliament groupings above the 3-percent mark.
The latter figure is the threshold for entering Greece’s Parliament in a general election.
An anti-bailout leftist party founded by former Parliament president Zoe Konstantopoulou is given 6 percent of respondents’ preference; 5 percent for the radical leftist grouping Antarsya, and 5 percent for another hard left and anti-bailout party, led by one-time SYRIZA minister Panayiotis Lafazanis.
The current junior coalition party, the rightist-populist Independent Greeks (AN.EL), appears hovering on the verge of Parliament representation, namely, 3 percent.
The undetermined / undecided vote was tallied at 25 percent, followed by blank / invalid responses, 22 percent.
