The bar for a single-party majority reached…Michael Jordan yesterday. ‘I would also like to be able to dunk backwards in basketball, like Jordan,’ Kyriakos Mitsotakis told ERT when discussing PASOK’s target, immediately drawing a dividing line between what is ‘feasible’ and what belongs to the ‘realm of science fiction’.

31% and the 15-point gap

And that is precisely what the polls are beginning to measure after TIF: not just the ranking, but also each party’s distance from its target. Marc provides the first clear picture.

In Marc’s vote estimate, New Democracy stands at 31%, Alexis Tsipras’s ELAS at 16% and PASOK at 11.5%. The gap between the first- and second-placed parties therefore reaches 15 percentage points, while Tsipras and Androulakis are separated by 4.5 points.

The 31% figure is significant, but the same poll opens up an even more interesting discussion: what kind of government do voters want after the next election?

Some 27.8% prefer a single-party New Democracy government, while almost the same proportion, 27.1%, favour a coalition government involving PASOK, ELAS and smaller left-wing parties.

And this is where the figures directly intersect with the political debate opened by the Prime Minister himself. Kyriakos Mitsotakis described a single-party New Democracy government as ‘the only realistic government proposal today’, while making clear that he does not consider a parliamentary majority a given and that a major effort will be required to achieve it.

A little later, when he was asked directly what he would do if ND came first without securing a majority and whether he would approach PASOK, he avoided pre-empting what would happen the following day: ‘The Greek people are the boss’ and will indicate what the next government should be, he said, while also recalling that he himself had served as a minister in a coalition government with PASOK.

The battle for second place

Nikos Androulakis set his own bar even higher on SKAI: ‘Political change only if PASOK comes first.’ The polls, however, show that before first place, PASOK has a more immediate hurdle to clear: second place. And it is precisely there that the greatest movement is beginning to emerge.

In MRB’s adjusted figures, ND stands at 29%, ELAS at 17.4% and PASOK at 12.4%. Compared with the company’s previous poll, ND remains unchanged, ELAS has edged down by 0.2 percentage points and PASOK has gained 1.3 points. The gap between Tsipras and Androulakis therefore stands at five points.

The polling picture

Elsewhere, two polling gaps are taking centre stage. The first, between ND and ELAS, remains in double digits across all polls: 15 points in Marc, 11.6 in MRB, 13.5 in Pulse and 15.1 in Opinion Poll.

The second gap is noticeably smaller. ELAS and PASOK are 4.5 points apart in Marc, five in MRB, five in Pulse and 3.8 in Opinion Poll. The latter also puts PASOK at 12.1%, up 1.6 points from the previous poll conducted by the same company.

And when the four most recent polls are finally placed side by side, the ‘ceiling and floor’ become much clearer. Marc puts ND at 31%, ELAS at 16% and PASOK at 11.5%. MRB puts them at 29%, 17.4% and 12.4%. Pulse records 30.5%, 17% and 12%, while Opinion Poll gives 31%, 15.9% and 12.1%. Their ranges are also extremely narrow: 29%-31% for ND, 15.9%-17.4% for ELAS and 11.5%-12.4% for PASOK.