Pulse Poll: Smalls Gains for Ruling ND

Ruling New Democracy (ND) appears moving upwards in a latest opinion poll unveiled this week during a primetime newscast, with the difference between a distant second-place rival at 15 percentage points.

Center-right ND is given 29% in an extrapolation of answers given by respondents in an in the poll conducted by the Pulse firm for the television station Skai, compared to 14% for socialist/social democrat PASOK. The figure for the ruling party is slightly higher (half a percentage point) than in the last poll conducted last July by the same firm.

The poll was conducted between Sept. 14 and 16 in the wake of a series of tax breaks announced by PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) days earlier.

In terms of other parties, Plefsi Eleftherias (Course of Freedom) is calculated at 10.5%, down a 1.5 percentage points from the previous poll. Another six parties, two of whom are currently not represented in Parliament, are also given percentages surpassing the 3%-threshold needed to enter the legislature.

One high-flying SYRIZA, however, remains in single-digit “territory”, at 7% and with a downward trend.

In the category of which party they preferred, 17% of respondents declared “undecided”, while the blank/absentee figure was 3%.