Ruling conservative Nea Dimocratia, the party of prime minister Antonis Samaras, leads with a difference of 2.3% towards left-wing, main opposition party SYRIZA. Constant on the third position is extreme-right Golden Dawn that has raised its percentage.
In the latest poll conducted by MRB for Sunday newspaper Real News, respondents to support:
Nea Dimocratia 27.9%
Syriza 25.6%
Golden Dawn 13.4%
Independent Greeks 6.9%
Pasok 6.4%
Democratic Left 6.2%
KKE 5.8%
Ecologist Greens 1.5%
‘other parties’ 6.3%
To the question who is the most suitable for prime minister, respondents gave ND leader Antonis Samaras 43.2% and Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras 23.7%.
31.2% of the respondents said ‘no one’. (via enetenglish)
How comes recession-ridden Greeks still support the ruling party that enforces the violent austerity measures of the loan agreements? Are the Greeks nuts?
Hm… The problem is that they do not have many alternatives.
Samaras‘ strong campaign “economic recovery is near” seems to give the desperate masses a straw of hope to hold on. It’s the ongoing Samaras’ promises of restarting the economy with big road construction projects to create thousands of work places. It’s the ongoing government promises to hire in the public sector once civil servants are dismissed. It’s Samaras’ ongoing struggle to achieve the lowering of Value Added Tax in catering businesses. It’s the ongoing government programs ‘hiring’ jobless for 500 euro. What if these contracts last just a couple of weeks or months? It’s better than nothing. It’s the ‘gifts’ given here and there to certain economic, labor groups and unions. All this brings support in a country with 27% unemployment. One should not forget to mention the propaganda machinery of ND supported by all major mainstream media.
Main opposition SYRIZA does not manage to record gains due to economic policies proposals that create rather confusion than convince that the party can solve the country’s problems. Some radical voices from within the party create uncertainty among the middle classes. It policies seem contradictory, something between radical nationalization of assets and wealth and moderate policies. Or maybe it’s the language of the left intellectuals that the broad masses fail to understand or keep trace of.
The main problem of SYRIZA, the several political components that form the Alliance of Radical Left and often express multi-facetted economic proposals, will most probably be solved as SYRIZA does a political restructuring over the weekend.
The rising of Golden Dawn cannot be halted. It’s populist policies of triggering the anti-immigrant sentiment and openly abasing the established political system, seem to speak right into the heart of the frustrated Greek. No to mention that the party’s charity work like distributing food to the poor “Greeks only” is often accompanied with large media coverage.
The rest of the Greek political parties…. is history.
Socialist PASOK is labelled with the tag of corruption and sold-out of the country to the international lenders.
Democratic Left, consisting of former PASOK and SYRIZA officials, is being considered to have betrayed the left cause by allying with a pro-austerity coalition government.
Nationalist Independent Greeks is practically politically absent, while Communist KKE ... well… is out of date and time.
PS and because deep in their heart Greeks are rather conservative…
Unfortunately its called Stockholm Syndrome..so sad..
KTG- do you have an opinion on why the Independent Greeks do not do better as a conservative alternative to ND, instead of XA? is it because they are just seen as an extension of ND, since they are made up of a lot of former ND? Also what happened to LAOS did their support of the bailout drive their voters to XA?
I’ll come back to this later