Greek Polls: ND stable lead, SYRIZA – PASOK battle for second place

Only one political side can be smiling with relief after the first opinion polls: the local elections may have left New Democracy in a tailspin, but at the national level the party continues to maintain a wide lead over its rivals – and this, despite the drop in its percentages. .

Metron Analysis poll on Mega: Worry over inflation, economy; ruling ND still dominates; new SYRIZA leader debuts with low approval ratings

Beyond that, the percentages and qualitative figures on substance outline the big stakes of the next half-year. What are they not showing us? The changes that possible developments in SYRIZA could create, after the meeting of the Central Committee.

Derby for second place

The battle for second place definitely has two contenders: in the GPO poll, SYRIZA shows a rapid drop in voter intention, reaching 12.9%. In the Metron Analysis polls, the same percentage reaches only 12%. On the other hand, PASOK has a small increase, with 11.9% and 10.6% respectively.

If we believe the surveys, it is very easy in a few months for the order of the parties to have been reversed and PASOK to be counted, for the first time since 2012, as the main progressive pole of bipartisanship.

The concern around the Center-Left has to do mainly with the slow rate of rise in relation to the violent fall of SYRIZA, while in the main opposition they know that in order not to be led to a limitless shrinking they must stop the divisive image they present today.

In any case, the first opinion polls confirm what we imagined after the national and local government bouts: the European elections will capture the correlations and show the winner in the parallel battle being fought for the hegemony of the progressive space. Obviously, the conclusions are different if the two parties end up moving around 12% and another if they face off close to 20%.

The KKE benefits

If there is a sure winner in the minor opposition, it is certainly the communist party. Not only because the KKE sees its percentages rise (8.5% in GPO, 8.1% in Metron Analysis), but because its inputs come from its two main rivals in the progressive space. Based on Metron Analysis, the KKE wins 7.8% of SYRIZA voters, but also 3.9% of PASOK voters.

This information makes the KKE a regulator in the Centre-Left battlespace, but also a potential threat – it has not just one powerful pool, but two, gathering a protest vote which was never a given to receive.

The real question for KKE is whether it will be able to maintain this trend until the end, when the civil war in SYRIZA will one way or another have ended and PASOK, due to its size and political gravity, will be pushing in an interventionist way the government to achieve the goal of a good result in the European elections. On the contrary, the Plefsi Eleftherias party does not appear to be gaining from SYRIZA’s losses.

Stabilization in the far right

In contrast to the progressive space, the situation on the right of the right appears more consolidated – and therefore more easily controlled.

The developments in the “Spartians”, a merry-go-round blame game that started in the extreme right after the conflict between President Vassilis Stiga and his deputies (and continued in the background, after the reconciliation), combined with the bad result for Ilias Kasidiaris in Athens, lowered the “Spartan” influence.

The main player of the right-wing apartment building is now the “Hellenic Solution”, which is consolidating at around 5%, without seeming to have been harmed by the embrace with the government in the case of the changes to the Civil Code and, by extension, in the case of wiretapping.

“Niki” also stabilizes close to 3%, without touching it in intention, only in estimation – the asterisk here concerns the safety of the sample, but also how the emergence of issues such as identities, which ” inflated” the percentages of “Victory” in the past.

The faces “show” the way

The dynamics of the parties is mainly reflected in the indicators concerning their leaders – proving once again that political figures in the Greek political scene play a dominant role in the choice of citizens. Kyriakos Mitsotakis continues to clearly win the question of the most appropriate for PM.

In the GPO poll, however, for the first time the president of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis, surpasses the president of SYRIZA: Androulakis has a percentage of 13.8%, while Kasselakis has 12.1%.

In the popularity of political leaders, the percentages of Dimitris Koutsoubas (first in positive opinions in Metron Analysis, surpassing Mitsotakis, second in GPO) are impressive, confirming that the positive result for the KKE has to do with the profile and personality of its general secretary.

Androulakis surpasses Kasselakis in popularity in any case (40%-25% in Metron Analysis poll, 41.5%-24.3% in GPO poll), a fact that should worry SYRIZA – mainly because Kasselakis is the newly elected president and he has not shown any momentum since the fresh mandate he received, while in recent days he has also been questioned by his internal party opposition.