Ruling New Democracy (ND) fields a 15-percentage point lead over its nearest rival, socialist PASOK, in the latest opinion poll results presented on Wednesday evening.
Another timely finding of the poll, conducted by the Pulse firm and presented on an Athens television channel’s prime-time newscast, is that an ongoing investigation into the fraudulent payment of hundreds of millions of euros in agriculture subsidies only marginally interests voters.
Most parties surveyed were given the same support in this month’s Pulse poll as they did in the previous month’s survey, sans the Plefsi Eleftherias (Course of Freedom) party, which drops 1.5 percentage points, and SYRIZA, which gains one percentage point.
The poll shows up to nine parties entering Parliament if elections were held on Sunday, i.e. above a 3 percent showing in a general election (of valid votes).
In an extrapolation of the findings, center-right ND is gauged at 28.5%, a figure higher than the percentage of the vote it picked up in the last European Parliament election, while PASOK is just above 13% and far behind the incumbent party.
Three out of four respondents said they consider the agriculture subsidies fraud, known as the OPEKEPE affair from the acronym of the now disbanded farm ministry agency, as significant. However, views are mostly even as to the culpability of political parties, with 33% of respondents blaming the current ruling party, ND, another 33% blaming all the parties that have governed to date, and 23% blaming the entire political system.
