Continuing a trend of recent polls that shows virtually no difference in support for the ruling New Democracy (ND) Conservatives and their major opposition Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA,) the two parties remain essentially deadlocked.
But Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, the ND leader, is a runaway choice to remain the country’s leader, with 46 percent support compared to 29.3 percent for SYRIZA head Alexis Tsipras, who opposes the austerity measures Samaras’ uneasy coalition government is continuing to impose.
The parties have the same 20.3 percent support in a survey by the group GPO for Mega TV but perhaps most worrisome for the political leaders is that 23.5 percent of Greeks prefer nobody as their leader.
The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party remains third, but has fallen from a high of 14 percent in earlier polls to 9 percent, while Samaras’ coalition partners, the PASOK Socialists came in at 7.5 percent and the tiny Democratic Left (DIMAR) at only 5 percent. The nationalist Independent Greeks polled at 6.3% and the Greek Communist Party (KKE) at 5.8%.
Samaras also topped the popularity chart with 42% on the question of how positively respondents feel about the country’s political leaders. He is followed by DIMAR’s Fotis Kouvelis with 41.8%, Tsipras with 38.3%, Panos Kammenos of Independent Greeks with 33.3%, Evangelos Venizelos of Socialist PASOK with 32.6%, Communist Party’s (KKE) Aleka Papariga with 30.2% and Golden Dawn’s Nikos Michaloliakos with 14.7%.
In terms of the crisis-hit country’s situation, 60.3% believe it is worse now than it was before the June general elections, 19.9% believe it is better and 19.3% see things as unchanged. Asked how they view the government’s efforts to overcome the crisis, 61.6% gave a negative response and 37.3% said it was doing a good job, while 73.7% of respondents said that SYRIZA is not ready to govern the country.
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