PASOK strikes a defiant note
On the eve of today’s announcement of a new opinion poll expected to be damning for the ruling Socialists, a top PASOK electoral campaign official adopted a Churchillian tone yesterday against opposition New Democracy. Asked to comment on a leaked report that the newest issue of the six-monthly MRB poll gave ND an 8.2 percent lead over PASOK, former Foreign Minister Theodoros Pangalos stopped just shy of vowing to «never surrender,» as the British World War II leader did in June 1940. «We shall fight to the end,» he said. «We shall fight (ND) in the streets, we shall fight them in the town squares, we shall fight them in the villages, in coffee shops, we shall fight them in the media, in Parliament.» Asked to comment on the leaked poll data, published in Avriani daily yesterday, government spokesman Christos Protopapas said were they true, MRB should not have leaked them. MRB said there was «no connection» between the report and its own survey. PASOK has steadily trailed ND in the polls for the past four years.
