GREECE: DOUBLE SHOCK FOR SAMARAS GOVERNMENT IN NEW POLLS & PARTY RUMBLINGS

Pasok collapses, Syriza leads

Golden Dawn surges into 2nd place

New Democracy diehards set to desert Samaras

The Slog: Previously 100% reliable Athens sources this morning relayed to The Slog findings from ‘secret ballot’ quantitative research polling undertaken by the American Embassy there. The results spell trouble for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras…..and present Brussels with even bigger problems.

In a sensational development today, results from an opinion poll allowing respondents to keep their final voting intentions ‘secret’ during the interview show some astonishing developments since the Coalition ‘crackdown’ on Golden Dawn. This is the state of the Parties as recorded by the study (%):

Syriza (Left)  23.5

Golden Dawn (Far Right) 17.5

New Democracy (Conservative) 13.5

KKE (Communist) 5.5

ANEL (Conservative) 4.5

PASOK (Venizelos) 2.9

Plan B (Anti-Troika) 2.5

DIMAR (Pro-Pasok) 2.2

Others c. 20

Undecided c. 10.0

As I posted recently, it seemed likely that the “collapse” in Golden Dawn support had been overstated by open questioning: given the chance to keep their extremism quiet, older more traditional Greeks are siding with GD’s “patriotism” and avowed policy of helping the old on a district-by-district basis. Whatever any of us may feel about the neo-Nazis, this strategy has very successful. We must also reluctantly take our hats off to American psephologists, who probably still lead the world in the study of voting behaviour….and how to tell lies from truth.

As both the Lenders and the IMF represent America more or less directly, we can be sure that Brussels and Berlin are already aware of this result.

Meanwhile, in an as yet unconfirmed report, bizarrely I am told that ‘a significant number of members of the parliament, who belong to New Democracy, but they are coming from the part of New Democracy which is the old part that belongs to Konstantinos Karamanlis (the founder of New Democracy and that who took the country after the Junta of 1974) are very very disappointed with what ND has become under Samaras.They may be in secret discussions which may include even the possibility of supporting Syriza, if Syriza is going to fight Troika’.

Farts have a tendency to backfire, and that truism seems to apply to Antonikis more than most. What looked at first sight like a smart move (bash the Nazis) has predictably stirred the hornets’ nest bigtime.

I’d love to record that Antonis Samaras is, as we say in English, “too clever by half”. But the overwhelming majority of my Greek friends suggest the opposite is true.

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