Greece's ruling Socialists continue to hold a narrow lead over the center-right
opposition, a poll showed Sunday, even as their popularity continues to slide amid discontent over ongoing austerity measures.According to the Sunday edition of the Eleftheros Typos newspaper, the Socialist, or Pasok party, holds a narrow 3.5 percentage-point lead over the opposition New Democracy party, down from a 12 percentage-point lead in March last year.
Since early last year, the Greek government has been implementing a tough multi-year austerity program to fix its public finances in exchange for a EUR110 billion bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The terms of that agreement, known locally as the memorandum, are theoretically due to expire at the end of the second quarter of 2013.
But the poll also shows that 72% of Greeks do not believe that Greece will be able to exit from the terms of that memorandum by then. At the same time, 66% of Greeks oppose selling off public assets, an issue that has been at the forefront of public debate in the past two weeks when the government revealed it is aiming for EUR50 billion in privatizations over the next few years.
Despite that, the poll also shows that six out of 10 Greeks do not favor early elections.
The Socialist government, was elected to office in October 2009 for a four-year term. However, there is speculation that the government may seek a fresh mandate from voters as early as April this year.
By Alkman Granitsas
source: Dow Jones Newswires
