Syriza
Party Ahead in Voter Surveys, but Narrow Margin Shrinks
By ALKMAN
GRANITSAS
Updated
Jan. 7, 2015 4:15 p.m. ET
The Wall Street Journal
The polls
show the Syriza party, which opposes Greece ’s financial bailout and its
economic reforms, garnering between 28.5% and 31.6% of the vote, placing it
ahead of the governing New Democracy party, which has been implementing the
economic austerity measures.
New
Democracy would get between 25.3% and 28.6% of the vote, according to the two
polls, for the Mega television channel and the weekly To Pontiki newspaper.
The polls
were the first taken since former Prime Minister George Papandreou announced
last week the formation of a new party, the Movement of Social Democrats.
According to both surveys, Mr. Papandreou’s party would struggle to meet the 3%
threshold needed to enter Parliament, garnering just 2.5% to 2.6% of the vote.
Greece’s
coalition government—comprising both New Democracy and its junior partner, the
socialist Pasok party—has been forced to hold snap elections on Jan. 25 after
the Greek Parliament failed last month to agree on a new head of state.
Since then,
New Democracy has tried to cast the coming election as a de facto referendum on
Greece ’s
future in the eurozone. It says that Syriza’s opposition to economic reform
policies and its demands for a debt write-off would lead to an open break with Greece ’s
eurozone partners, who have financed the country’s €240 billion ($284 billion)
bailout.
Syriza
rejects the criticism, saying that the government is fear-mongering to win
votes, recalling New Democracy’s narrow victory in the previous elections in
2012, when voters were frightened at the prospect of a Greek exit from the
eurozone. But the Syriza party continues to demand debt relief from the
eurozone and promises to roll back many of the austerity and reform measures Greece has
undertaken in exchange for the aid.
The latest
polls, however, show that the fear tactic may be having some effect. Both polls
showed that Syriza’s lead over New Democracy has shrunk, falling to 3.2
percentage points in the Mega survey, down from 4.9 percentage points in
mid-December. The survey in the To Pontiki newspaper likewise shows Syriza’s
lead narrowing to 3.0 percentage points—within the margin of error for the
poll—down from 3.3 percentage points previously.
The poll
for To Pontiki, was conducted by the Alco polling agency, has a margin of error
of 3.1 percentage points and was based on a sample of 1,000 respondents
interviewed between Jan. 4 and 6. Statistical details for the Mega poll,
conducted by the GPO polling agency, weren't available.
“The polls
seem to show that Syriza is headed for victory,” said John Dimakis at STR, an
Athens-based communications consultancy. “But the margin has definitely
narrowed in the last few days.”
Under Greece ’s electoral rules, the winning party is
automatically awarded 50 bonus seats in Greece ’s 300-seat legislature, a
measure aimed at facilitating the stability of an elected government. But the
recent polls suggest that neither Syriza nor New Democracy would secure enough
votes—even with that 50-seat bonus—to win an absolute majority in Parliament,
forcing either to seek coalition partners.
Write to
Alkman Granitsas at alkman.granitsas@wsj.com
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