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Roundup: Greek Leftists hold marginal lead over conservatives ahead of early elections: surveys

Xinhua, August 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Greece's Radical Left SYRIZA party of former prime minister Alexis Tsipras holds a slim lead within the marginal error over the conservatives three weeks before the early national elections, according to five opinion surveys published on Friday.

The undecided which reach about 25 percent will determine the outcome, pollsters noted.

Experts also stressed that unless a dramatic surprise emerges from the ballot, no party can secure parliamentary majority and therefore after the polls a new coalition government should be formed to govern the debt laden country.

If elections were held today SYRIZA would win 22.2 percent of votes against 21.2 percent for the conservative New Democracy (ND) party, according to the survey conducted by polling firm Metron Analysis for "Parapolitika" (Behind the Scenes) newspaper.

The far- Right Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avghi) would follow with 6.4 percent of votes, the centrist River (Potami) party with 5.1 percent and the Communist KKE party with 4.5 percent.

The socialists of PASOK, the centre-Left Centrists' Union party and the new anti-bailout Popular Unity party would also enter the next assembly with 4.1 percent of votes, 3.8 percent and 3.1 percent respectively.

The Right-wing Independent Greeks party (ANEL), the junior coalition partner in Tsipras' government, will fail to reach the three percent threshold needed to enter the parliament garnering 1.7 percent of votes.

Similar results were given by other four polling firms. SYRIZA leads with 25 percent against 22 percent of votes in the poll carried out by the University of the Northern Greece region of Macedonia for private broadcaster SKAI.

MARC put the percentages for the two dominant parties to 25.3 percent and 23.2 percent respectively in the survey conducted for the Alpha television channel.

According to MRB's opinion poll for "Agora" (Market) daily SYRIZA leads with 24.6 percent versus 22.8 percent for ND, while ProRata gave 23 percent and 19.5 percent respectively in the survey conducted for the "Efimerida ton Syntakton" (Editors' Newspaper).

SYRIZA was elected in January with 36 percent of votes on an anti-austerity platform.

The party seems to have lost significant ground lately after the marathon negotiations that led to the signing of a third harsh bailout program to keep the country afloat and in the euro zone.

At the final stretch of the negotiations with international creditors capital controls were introduced to avert the collapse of the Greek banking system, paralyzing the real economy which had already suffered much during a six year recession.

Tsipras resigned last week to trigger the elections after a mutiny against the deal within SYRIZA. His goal is to receive a stronger mandate to implement the bailout, he told Greek citizens. According to political analysts in Athens his plan may backfire.

The results were published as the parliament was dissolved, the election date was set for Sept. 20 and an interim administration headed by the Supreme Court top judge Vassiliki Thanou took oath to lead Greece to its second national elections this year. Endit