Greece's radical left SYRIZA leads in opinion polls ahead of elections

Greece's main opposition radical left SYRIZA party leads over the ruling conservative New Democracy (ND) party in all the latest opinion surveys released this weekend, two weeks away from the Jan. 25 general elections in the country.

A poll conducted for Sunday's Vima (Tribune) newspaper by polling firm Kappa Research gave SYRIZA 28.1 percent of votes against 25.5 percent for ND.

SYRIZA advocates a harsher negotiation with Greece's international lenders over the conditions of the post-bailout relationship, refuelling fears of political and economic instability in the country which exits a five-year acute debt crisis.

The New Democracy party of of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras presents itself as a guarantor of stability and progress to leave the crisis behind for good and restore growth, but several austerity-hit voters seemed unconvinced.

With both parties expected to most likely fall short of the required threshold, depends on the number of parties which will enter the parliament or not, to secure outright majority in the next 300-member strong parliament, parties officials and analysts followed with great interest also the performance of the smaller parties, searching for possible coalition partners.

Centrist River (Potami) party was ranking third with 6.5 percent of votes, followed by the neo-fascist Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) which garnered 5.4 percent.

The socialist smaller partner in the outgoing coalition government PASOK came next with 5.2 and the Communist Party (KKE) with 5 percent.

The Democrat Socialists' Movement (KIDISO) launched on Jan. 3 by the socialist former prime minister and former PASOK chief George Papandreou garnered 2.8 percent and the nationalists of the Independent Greeks party 2.6 percent, marginally lower than the 3 percent threshold required entering the parliament.

About 14.8 percent had not decided yet or were leaning towards casting a blank vote.

Similar were the results of other surveys published on Sunday.

A poll carried out by polling firm Public Issue on behalf of the Sunday edition of Avgi (Dawn) newspaper gave SYRIZA a lead of 38 percentage points over 30 percent for ND.

Potami followed with 7 percent of votes, PASOK with 5.5 percent, KKE with 5 percent and the Independent Greeks with 3 percent of votes.

In another survey of ALCO commissioned by the newspaper Proto Thema (Top Story), SYRIZA leads with 31.2 percent compared to 28 percent garnered by ND.

Potami compered for the third place with Golden Dawn and PASOK, garnering respectively 4.5 percent, 4.2 percent and 4 percent.

KKE followed with 3.7 percent, KIDISO with 2.4 and the Independent Greeks with 2.2 percent, while about 9.6 percent of respondents were still undecided.

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