Most Greeks unhappy with country's course, but do not want early elections: surveys

The overwhelming majority of Greeks was unhappy with the country's course but did not want early general elections, according to the latest opinion surveys released this weekend.

If elections were held today, the main opposition conservative New Democracy (ND) party would win with 20.8 percent, while the Radical Left SYRIZA of current Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would follow garnering 17.3 percent of votes, the poll carried out by Kappa Research polling firm for Sunday's Vima (Tribune) newspaper showed.

However, the 52.5 percent of respondents preferred to give more time to the two-partite ruling coalition which was reelected last September rather than heading to the ballots soon.

During 2015 two national elections were held within nine months in addition to one referendum last July.

Despite disgruntlement with unpopular government policies, only 35.5 percent of voters was in favor of snap elections, according to Kappa Research.

A survey conducted by the University of Macedonia for SKAI television on Saturday showed similar results.

Among the respondents in SKAI's opinion poll, 80.5 percent believes that Greece is heading towards the wrong direction and under the current government policies the country will not manage to exit the debt crisis.

A 74 percent of Greeks appeared pessimistic about their personal financial situation, expecting that it will degenerate over the next year.

Nevertheless, a 44 percent of respondents would prefer to see the current government completing its four-year term in office against a 41 percent which opts for early elections.

According to the SKAI survey, ND leads with 25.5 percent versus 17.5 percent for SYRIZA.

In both surveys which were conducted in late May after the parliament approved the latest round of painful austerity and reform measures in exchange for further bailout loans, the ultra-Right Chryssi Avghi (Golden Dawn) remains in the third place with 5.9-7 percent of votes. Endit