Support for far-rightist Karadzaferis was mostly tactical voting, says survey
Was the support for Giorgos Karadzaferis purely tactical, without any broader political significance, or the conscious decision of a portion of the electorate who applauded the stance of the former’s extreme-right LAOS party? And if the latter is true, how many voters are likely to once again endorse the opinions expressed by Karadzaferis if he decides to run as an independent in the next parliamentary elections? A group of 600 citizens who voted in last Sunday’s elections were asked to answer the above questions, which have been the focus of debate in the corridors of party offices but also on television over the last few days. Their answers were extremely interesting. Steady choice A total of 60 percent of those questioned, in the poll conducted by Kapa Research on behalf of state broadcaster ERT, said their vote for the former New Democracy deputy had been inspired by their disapproval of ND’s nomination of Yiannis Tzannetakos as prefectural candidate. Only 26.9 percent said they «endorsed the ideologies of Karadzaferis and supported his party.» However, Karadzaferis’s supporters expressed an entirely different stance, with nearly half of them (48.9 percent) calling their vote for the LAOS leader «a steady political choice.» This has some political significance (even considering the fact that the survey was conducted on a small sample and in the context of a highly charged mid-election climate) as 6.6 percent of the electorate of the Athens-Piraeus «super-prefecture» said they would vote for Karadzaferis if he were to stand in national elections! This was a position rejected by almost half (48.9 percent) of those polled, who explicitly stated that they essentially «used» Karadzaferis when they voted for him last week to «send a message» of protest to ND for nominating Tzannetakos as its candidate. ND’s voters ND voters hold similar opinions, according to the survey. The overwhelming majority of them (85.7 percent), who were loyal to the candidate chosen to represent their party, reckoned that «votes for Karadzaferis were exclusively tactical and only for the prefectural elections.» Only 12.9 percent expressed the conviction that those votes might be transformed into «a steady political choice.» Similar opinions were expressed by voters supporting PASOK candidate Fofi Yennimata, with only 29.2 percent saying they thought Karadzaferis would have as much luck in parliamentary elections, as opposed to 68.8 percent who reckoned that the votes cast for Karadzaferis were tactical and only valid for the prefectural elections.
