Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party is given an 11.2-percentage point lead over ruling SYRIZA in the latest opinion result, which was published over the weekend in the staunchly anti-government Sunday weekly "Proto Thema", Greece's best-selling newspaper.
If translated into actual numbers in a general election, the result means an outright majority in Parliament for center-right ND.
The poll, conducted by the Marc firm, gives ND 31.2 percent of respondents' vote, to 20 percent for leftist and previously anti-bailout SYRIZA. Third place goes to the socialist/social democrat grouping (KINAL), which has mostly coalesced around once dominant PASOK, at 7.1 percent.
Ultra-nationalist and far-right Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) is given 6.5 percent, and the "old guard" Communist Party of Greece (KKE) polls 6.2 percent of respondents' preferences. No other party exceeds 3 percent in the specific poll, a result that is similar in practically all mainstream opinion polls over the past year and a half. Surpassing a 3-percent threshold in a general election - based on valid votes cast - is necessary to enter Greece's 300-MP parliament.
In one of the more specific questions asked in the poll, 72.2 percent of respondents said they favored a snap election if the small Independent Greeks (AN.EL) party bolts from the current coalition government. Nearly 60 percent of respondents agreed with the notion that DM and AN.EL president Panos Kammenos damages the government's image.
Kammenos and at least some of his remaining MPs are vocal opponents of the Prespa agreement that was negotiated and signed by the Tsipras government that they continue to prop up, with the former merely saying that he'll leave the Cabinet whenever the accord is submitted to Greece's Parliament for ratification.
With AN.EL appearing as a long shot to re-enter Parliament, the prospect of a snap election (before October 2019) is not welcomed by Kammenos, the other party MPs serving on the Cabinet and the remaining grass roots supporters of the populist and Euro-sceptic party.
