Two opinion polls show ruling ND party losing ground after deadly train accident; SYRIZA fails to capitalize from discontent

The latest Metron Analysis opinion poll presented on Thursday evening during the prime-time newscast of Athens-based Mega channel gives ruling New Democracy (ND) party only a little more than a quarter of respondents’ preference, namely, 26.3 percent.

At the same time, however, main opposition SYRIZA is apparently failing to capitalize on the ND’s government lagging voter approval ratings, as it picks up only a fifth of the poll result, 20.5 percent.

The results come in the wake of a deadly Feb. 28 train collision in north-central Greece as the Tempi Valley Gorge site, negatively reflected vis-a-vis the Mitsotakis government and ruling ND party.

The poll was conducted between March 7 and March 13, 2023 on a sample of 1,201 respondents.

Compared with a similar Metron Analysis poll last month, ND appears to lose four percentage points, thus recording one of its worst showings in polls conducted by the specific firm.

Leftist SYRIZA fares no better, dropping two percentage points from the previous poll results in February 2023, and thus remaining 5.8 percentage points behind center-right ND.

Third-place PASOK eased to 9.2 percent of respondents’ preference, down from 10 percent last month.

Added together, at least in terms of the specific poll’s figures, the first two political parties fail to exceed 50 percent, interpreted as the general public’s backlash against the country’s political system in the aftermath of calamitous rail tragedy, which has claimed the life of 57 people.

Other lesser opposition parties represented in Parliament show the Communist Party (KKE) remaining solidly at 5.9 percent, while the right-of-center and Euro-skeptic Elliniki Lysi party reaches 4 percent, up from 2.9 percent last month. Political maverick Yanis Varoufakis’ radical left Mera25 party also appears as gaining strength, reaching 3.5 percent from last month’s 2.9 percent.

On an ominous note, an extreme-right political party created by imprisoned former Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) lieutenant and MP Ilias Kasidiaris is shown as preferred by 3.6 percent of respondents, doubling its showing from last month’s 1.8 percent.

The threshold for a political party to be represented in Greece’s Parliament is 3 percent of valid votes in a general election.

The undecided and “no answer” bloc reached 11.8 percent in the specific poll; 5.9 percent of respondents said they will not vote in an upcoming general election, while 4.3 percent said they will cast a blank or invalid ballot. Roughly 4 percent of respondents picked another party.

Thursday evening also witnessed the release of results of a poll by the Pulse firm, presented on the Skai television channel, and showing ND with 30 percent of respondents’ preference – in an extrapolation of the results – to 26 percent for SYRIZA, a margin of four percentage points.

Socialist PASOK is given 10 percent; 6 percent for KKE; 4 percent for Elliniki Lysi; 3.5 percent for Mera25, and 3.5 percent for Kasidiaris’ newly hatched party.