Political gap widens
Midway through its four-year term, the government yesterday was contemplating its continuing slide in opinion polls and judging the results of a nationally televised news conference by Prime Minister Costas Simitis on Monday night, in which he presented the achievements of the past two years and his plans before the next elections in 2004. Simitis’s aides at the Maximos Mansion were reasonably pleased with the result of his televised appearance, mainly on the basis of a poll commissioned from the Kappa Research company involving 88 PASOK voters, 85 supporters of the conservative New Democracy opposition party and 27 supporters of other parties. These 200 voters gave Simitis an overall grade of 6.9 out of 10. Their points for specific answers to questions ranged from 7.95 points on whether he would leave the party leadership at the end of his term (he said he would not) to 5.71 regarding the woes of the Athens Stock Exchange. Senior government officials said that Simitis’s overall appearance had been positive, but they noted that the current political climate could only improve through specific government initiatives. The latest polls indicate that the lead enjoyed by the conservatives has been widening over the last few months. In the most ominous development for the ruling party, 7.9 percent of those who voted for PASOK in the last elections appear ready to vote for New Democracy, while only 1.4 percent of ND voters are headed toward PASOK. Furthermore, 31.7 percent of those responding to a poll by ALCO (presented by Alpha television yesterday) said that they considered ND leader Costas Karamanlis better suited for the post of prime minister, followed by Simitis with 29.9 percent. The poll, conducted among 1,962 people from March 21 to April 5, found that 36 percent were prepared to vote for New Democracy, 28.5 percent for PASOK, 5 percent for the Communist Party, 4.7 percent for Athens Mayor Dimitris Avramopoulos’s Movement of Free Citizens. The Left Coalition hovered at the 3 percent threshold for entry into Parliament, followed by the Democratic Social Movement (DIKKI) with 2.1 percent. The gap appears to be growing. The same company had found 34.6 percent ready to vote for ND in September and 28.2 percent for PASOK. In January, a Metron Analysis poll found 37.2 percent ready to vote for ND and 30.9 percent for PASOK, while in December an MRB poll gave ND 34.8 percent to PASOK’s 28.2 percent.
