A new opinion poll by MARC shows that 66% of Greek citizens want the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government to reach an agreement with international creditors while almost 31% would like to see a rift with Europe. The poll also showed that trust in the way the government was handling negotiations was waning at 54.2%, down from 81.5% in favor of the government’s handling in February. 43.3% believe that the negotiation strategy is wrong.
65.9% of those questioned state that they want the government to make compromises and reach a deal with lenders whereas 30.7% want an all-out open clash. Only 39.3% want the government to cross the ‘red lines’ it has set (ie. 13th pension, minimum wage increase, collective bargaining for work contracts, etc), compared to 56.7% who do not want the government to back down from these basic conditions even if this meant that a deal with creditors would not be reached.
53.2% feel that the Greek government has a good track record while 42.8% said they were not satisfied, a drop from 83.6% and 13.2% respectively in February. 47.6% said that the government was performing worse than their initial expectations, 30.1% responded “better” and 18.7% responded “as I expected”.
The poll found that SYRIZA would still win if elections were held at the present time with 36.2% in favor, followed by the conservative New Democracy (ND) party at 21%, centrist To Potami (6.7%), ultranationalist Golden Dawn (Chrysi Avgi) at 5.4%, the Greek Communist Party (KKE) at 5%, the right-wing anti-austerity junior government coalition Independent Greeks (ANEL) at 4.1%, socialist PASOK at 3.1%, Center Union at 1.5%, the Social Democrats Movement (KIDISO) at 1.3% and left-wing ANTARSYA at 1%.
