The first opinion poll showing an slight lead by conservative New Democracy over leftist SYRIZA was broadcast on Wednesday evening during a prime-time newscast.

ND is shown with a 0.3 percentage point lead over the recently ruling SYRIZA, with the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) coming in a distant third. The results were broadcast on the Mega TV newscast, and conducted by the firm GPO.

Specifically, ND picked up 25.3 percent of respondents’ vote in the poll, slightly more than the total for SYRIZA, 25 percent. Golden Dawn was at 5.5, PASOK 5.3, the Popular Unity party at 4 percent. Additionally, the GPO poll is the first showing ND leader Evangelos Meimarakis as more popular — as per respondents’ preferences — than recently resigned Alexis Tsipras, as the former’s popularity is 44.3 percent.

Other opinion polls also pointed close race for first place in the upcoming Sept. 20 snap election, with the one result giving leftist SYRIZA 23 percent of respondents’ vote, to 22.6 percent for conservative New Democracy.

The poll was conducted by the firm Alco for the news website Newsit.

Ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn is given 6.1 percent, followed by the Communist Party (5.5), centrist Potami (4.4), once mighty PASOK (4.2), the newly formed Popular Unity comprised of SYRIZA dissidents (3.9 percent) and the galloping Centrists’ Union (3.6). The populist-rightist Independent Greeks’ (AN.EL) party appears as missing the cut-off (3 percent) for entering Parliament.

The undecided vote was calculated at 14 percent.

While opinion polls are a significant tool for gauging the public’s sentiment, it should be noted that the last two elections — a general ballot in January and the July referendum — witnessed significant deviations between forecasts and final results.