BUT WHICH FOREIGN EMBASSY IS CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH?
With five days to go to next Sunday’s Greek General Election, more leaked figures from a secret Athens study still show New Democracy holding its own, but continuing growth by the minority Parties, in the regions around the Capital. I now have copies of polling in the five major regions of Attica (A, B and Rest of of Athens County) and the prefecture of Piraeus (A and B of Piraeus). But I still don’t know with any degree of certainty which foreign Embassy is conducting the study.
The heaviest betting is that it is the German Embassy, although that probably reflects as much the unpopularity of Berlin in Greece rather than any hard evidence. Quite a few think it may well be the Americans, or perhaps the Russians. If you have any strong evidence on this Athenians, please contact me at jawslog@gmail.com
The main loser is clearly Evangelo Venizelos’s PASOK Party. Although still well placed in the Establishment areas of Athens, even there it has only 13% of the voting intentions; elsewhere the Party’s position is under 10%. In Athens County, for example, PASOK garnered a risible 5.7% share. Although New Democracy will probably be the biggest Party in the next Greek Parliament, in Piraeus B it has only 8.1%: and minority Parties are catching it up.
The most spectacular gains have been made by the hard-Left Party SYRIZA. In Athens County it has over 20% of the vote, and nowhere in these polls is it lower than 2nd in the rankings. But the far-Right Party Independent Greeks has made great strides in the Piraeus region, where it has over 13% of the vote.
This is going to start alarm bells ringing in Brussels, Berlin and Washington. If these polls stay firm on election day, then the largest Party in Greece will probably have no more than 15% of the vote, and the extreme anti-Troika Parties will have a bloc occupying a third of the Parliament. Were they able to muster a united front against more austerity, the so-called minority groupings could now do so without the involvement of either Establishment Party. This is what they call in Brussels a mistake.
The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn has been considerably less successful: while younger Greek voters are deserting the Establishment in droves, they clearly have no desire to join the SS: in most areas it is at the lower end of the rankings. However, with only five days left, roughly 16% of voters remain undecided.
Tabulations below:
| Α’ Athens | Rank | Β’ Athens | Rank | Rest Athens | Rank | Α’ Piraeus | Rank | Β’ Piraeus | Rank | |
| ND | 13,0 | 1 | 14,0 | 1 | 12,3 | 3 | 12,0 | 3 | 8,1 | 4 |
| PASOK | 13,0 | 1 | 9,5 | 4 | 5,7 | 5 | 8,5 | 5 | 7,6 | 5 |
| ΚΚΕ | 7,6 | 5 | 8,3 | 5 | 4,8 | 6 | 10,7 | 4 | 12,0 | 3 |
| SYRIZA | 12,3 | 2 | 13,7 | 2 | 21,1 | 1 | 13,4 | 2 | 15,4 | 1 |
| Democratic Left | 7,0 | 6 | 5,0 | 7 | 3,6 | 7 | 6,1 | 6 | 6,4 | 7 |
| INDEPENDENT GREEKS | 11,3 | 3 | 11,3 | 3 | 12,7 | 2 | 13,8 | 1 | 13,7 | 2 |
| LAOS | 1,8 | 9 | 1,8 | 9 | 2,0 | 8 | 1,0 | 10 | 1,8 | 9 |
| Democratic Alliance | 2,2 | 7 | 1,4 | 10 | 0,9 | 9 | 1,4 | 9 | 1,1 | 10 |
| Green | 2,0 | 8 | 3,7 | 8 | 4,8 | 6 | 5,2 | 7 | 3,3 | 8 |
| GOLDEN DAWN | 9,5 | 4 | 6,6 | 6 | 9,6 | 4 | 4,5 | 8 | 6,7 | 6 |
| Undecided | 14,0 | 18,0 | 14,0 | 15,0 | 14,0 |
Coming soon to a polling booth near you:
MY BIG FAT GREEK WIPE-OUT
Starring Envangelo Venizelos
The Slog 