The election campaign ends today, the political parties are to hold their last meeting, and candidates to appear for the last time in the mass media. The Greek voter is supposed to get a 24-hour break from the bombardment of the ‘promises’ and ‘dilemmas’ (euro or drachma?) in order to contemplate who to vote for on Sunday. The outcome of elections remains uncertain. Apart from the fact that no party will manage to win the absolute majority. Official opinion polls have been banned for a period of two weeks before the elections. However, the parties order rolling polls on a daily basis. And they leak them to websites and blogs, in an effort to influence undecided voters. Are these polls appearing on Greek internet true or false?
Daily TA NEA speaks today of “Dirty Games with Fake Opinion Polls” underlining that these “alleged secret polls create confusion among the voters.” The opinion polls appear almost daily, but always without the name of the pollster companies that have conducted them.
“Characteristically, a news website claimed on Thursday that conservative Nea Dimokratia is close to win absolute majority, while another site claimed that ND is close to collapse, while the cohesion in socialist PASOK is on the rise. Equally blurred is the situation concerning the other parties. For example, left-wing SYRIZA is referred to as “the big surprise chasing the second place at the elections race” while some claim that the party struggles to get two-digit figures.”
Other polls KTG has read on internet claim that ND-PASOK get together from 40% to even 48%.
A 40% would rather need a third party to form a government, a 48% would mean the win of bipartisanship. Again.
The alleged “success of bipartisanship” mainly targets angry former voters of PASOK and ND to return to the warm hug of their old choices and not to cast a vote for right-wing alternatives like Independent Greeks, LAOS and Chrysi Avgi and left-wing like SYRIZA, Democratic Left and KKE.
Great and Small Expectations
According to some Greek media, the winner of elections 2009, socialist PASOK would be more than happy to get between 17% and 20%. In 2009 elections PASOK got 44%. Two years of harsh austerity, rash impoverishment and continuous taxes have crushed the party in the eyes of its low-income and middle-classes voters.
Conservative Nea Dimocratia expects a 24% to 30%. The party of Antonis Samaras is sure to be the winner of the elections but an absolute majority is not written on the planets.
Left-wing SYRIZA is expected to gain two-digit percentage and will most likely get the third place at the race.
Communist KKE seems to have missed the chance to gain new voters out of the economic crisis as it heralds exit from the euro zone and European Union and rejects any governance options. Many Greeks consider KKE’s positions as ‘outdated’. Furthermore, the majority of Greeks, the middle classes and former voters of ND and PASOk want to remain in the euro, and want a coalition government.
Independent Greeks of Panos Kammenos (former ND) expect to get a descent percentage (8%-10%), the same is expected by Democratic Left of Fotis Kouvelis (former SYRIZA; some former PASOK MPs).
Eco-Greens see some good chances to enter the parliament.
But the pure elections success will be for extreme-right Chrysi Avgi, a neo-nazi party that grabs voters focusing on the problem of illegal immigration.
Far-right LAOS and neo-liberal Democratic Alliance would be happy to pass the 3% threshold.
