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Anastasia Balezdrova

For the first time since the elections last June and despite the severe economic measures, the main governing party, New Democracy, is at the top of a poll. The difference in its favour, which the "Political barometer" poll carried out by the Public Issue Agency reports for January 2013, is half a percent.

In particular, in assessing the political influence of the parties, New Democracy ranks first with 29% compared to 28.5% for SYRIZA. The scale of the change becomes clearer when a comparison with the results of the poll carried out in December 2012 is made. Since then, New Democracy's rating has risen by three percentage points, while that of SYRIZA has dropped by two points.

At the same time, the majority of Greeks believe that the winner of possible elections would be SYRIZA with 44% compared to 39% for New Democracy. However, the difference between the two parties has suffered a spectacular decrease since only a month ago the ratio was 60% for SYRIZA compared to 29% for New Democracy.

In the political influence category, New Democracy and SYRIZA are followed by Golden Dawn with 10%, PASOK and Independent Greeks with 8%, Democratic Left with 7% and the Communist Party with 5.5%.

The poll reports a decline in the popularity of all political leaders with the exception of the Prime Minister and the leader of Democratic Left. Fotis Kouvelis leads with 51% followed by Antonis Samaras with 45%, Alexis Tsipras with 37%, Panos Kamenos with 32%, Aleka Papariga with 25%, Evangelos Venizelos with 22% and  Nikos Mihaloliakos with 16%.

Antonis Samaras is still considered the most suitable for prime minister by 48% of the respondents as the result has increased by 3% compared with December. Second is "neither of them" – 25% and third is the leader of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, with 24%, which is 5% lower than the previous result.

40% of respondents prefer to be governed by a coalition government involving New Democracy, PASOK and Democratic Left, 38% - by a government of SYRIZA and 19% - by neither of the two.

GRReporter turned for comment to the press office of SYRIZA, which referred us to the statements of the party spokesman Panos Skourletis. In his opinion, the poll results show that "the majority of Greek society does not trust the policies pursued, it is disappointed and sees the impasse." He said that the differences in the trends were minimal. Panos Skourletis added that the previous period was the last one, in which the government was able to keep even a part of its political viability. "I think the results of its policy will soon disprove all expectations and the government will soon collapse."

Sociologist George Siakandaris, however, "reads" the poll results differently. As he said for GRReporter, "during the two election races in 2012, SYRIZA had no programme to offer the voters for the governing of the country and so it chose to take a stand against the system. After the elections and especially under the influence of the more moderate members of the steering group like George Statakis and Yiannis Dragasakis, the radical leftists tried to move to the "club" of governing parties. But while trying to move from one boat to the other, some of the party members held it back and it was left "hanging".

According to the sociologist, the efforts of SYRIZA to criminalize the political life in Greece on the one hand and the party's unwillingness to strongly condemn "the manifestations of far-left violence that are growing each passing day, together with the statements of deputies, who oppose the parliamentary democracy, lead to dilemmas such as "order or disorder", "clean or dirty hands." George Siakandaris gave the examples of threats and attacks against the mayor of Athens, the occupations of parties’ offices, the placing of explosive devices outside the houses of journalists on that day.

"When a deputy from SYRIZA says that he is an anarchist and a supporter of direct democracy, it is like saying that he is a fan of Olympiakos but wants Panathinaikos to win the match. The anarchist does not recognize any kind of democracy or the direct one," he said. According to George Siakandaris, this "weightlessness" of SYRIZA has led to a rise in confidence in New Democracy.

The reactions in the social media were mixed.

"SYRIZA can breathe freely again: New Democracy leads by 0.5%."
 
"SYRIZA ranked second in a poll. Why is that? So many trips to Argentina, Brazil, Villa Amalia ... so much effort. What ungrateful persons."

"Alexis Tsipras said in a radio interview that the last poll was a snapshot. It looks more like a curse to me, Alexi," are some of the comments of some of the users of the Twitter social network.

The supporters of SYRIZA responded with no less "biting" remarks.

"New Democracy leads in the Public Issue’s poll, while unemployment is galloping."

"After the last poll, televisions are like the mother of a poor student who has got a B at school."

According to other political analysts, the change in political ratios is due to the decision of Eurogroup to grant the giant tranche of 50 billion euro to Greece as well as to the triple coalition that has been able to bring political stability to the country.