After the Thessaloniki International Exhibition, Maximou focused on the rapid implementation of what was announced and the Prime Minister spoke about a plan that will unfold over a 1,000-day horizon. But they also looked at the messages from the polls.
The government will be judged at the end of its four-year term is the message being conveyed, with Kyriakos Mitsotakis closing down scenarios of early appeal to the polls.
However, in the “blue” camp, they carefully study the results of the polls and receive multiple… messages. It should be recalled here that in the European elections in June, New Democracy fell short of the target it had set, as it did not reach the 30% target (it got 28.31%).
The latest data
A series of recent measurements show that the ruling party remains at approximately the same levels and does not increase its percentages. It is clear that the gap between the opposition parties remains large, as PASOK is moving around the percentages it had in the European elections, while SYRIZA is registering a downward trend in the measurements.
In particular:
- According to the GPO, New Democracy is at 27.2%, PASOK at 11.8%, SYRIZA at 9.3%, KKE at 8.3%, Hellenic Solution at 8.1%, Voice of Reason at 4.1%, Freedom Sailing at 3.5%, NIKI party at 2.7% and New Left at 2%.
- At the same time, according to a survey by MRB, the percentage of ND in voting intentions is 21.6% and with the reduction it reaches 27.7%. And the gap in relation to the opposition parties may continue to be large (PASOK is in second place in the vote and SYRIZA is falling to third place), but there is no room for complacency.
- According to an interview, to the question “if we had elections next Sunday, which party would you vote for?” 24.2% answered New Democracy, while PASOK follows with 13% (in this specific measurement, SYRIZA is in fifth place).
Low scores on critical questions
At the same time, the government has been struck by the fact that citizens have a low opinion of the government’s handling of a number of issues and are pessimistic about the future. It is characteristic that, according to the GPO, 57.4% have a negative opinion (and 39.2% have a positive opinion) of the Prime Minister’s announcements on the TIF. In fact, 65.7% have a negative opinion of the government’s announcements on punctuality (33.3% have a positive opinion), while 65% have answered “no” or “probably not” to the question of whether the measures will boost household income.
At the same time, in a survey by the MRB, when asked about how things are going in the country, 63.8% responded “fairly/very bad”. In fact, this is the highest percentage recorded in the last year, since last year, in October, it was 56.3%. But also in a recent survey by Interview, 79% of respondents evaluated the government’s work negatively, while only 19% expressed themselves positively.
The New Democracy camp is also experiencing a “headache” due to the fact that the percentage of undecided voters remains high, despite efforts to regroup working-class voters. Specifically, the percentage of those who declare themselves undecided varies, depending on the measure, from 11% to 16%. At the same time, it is not unnoticed that, according to a series of opinion polls, almost one in six voters will vote for parties that are moving to the right of New Democracy.
The next day
In government, they “read” the political scenario that has emerged and try to decode the situation. On the one hand, the Blues believe that there is political time to develop a series of initiatives, since two opposition parties – SYRIZA and PASOK – have their eyes mainly on the interior (they are preparing for intra-party elections). On the other hand, however, it cannot be ignored that the citizens, in the European elections, sent a clear message that they must move forward more quickly with a series of reforms.
On Sunday, responding to a question, the Prime Minister noted: “I don’t look at the polls every day and say: ‘oops, we have a problem here, let’s change our policy’. In particular, he stressed that the policy implemented over a four-year horizon will benefit citizens, while also stressing “even if we have to bear a temporary political cost, which may have been expressed in an electoral contest like the European elections, that is part of the political process itself”.