New poll shows what Greeks feel about parties, Erdogan’s comments against Mitsotakis, and subsidies

A new poll by Interview pollsters found, seemingly counter-intuitively, that 68% of Greeks believe that “The Turks are our friends”. The finding that one in two Greek households find themselves “unprepared” in terms of energy saving measures seems more sound. At the same time, 80% of respondents said “No” to benefits, and “Yes” to VAT reductions. These are some of the findings of the Interview poll presented by Politic, along with voting intention and what people think of parties and coalition governments.

The difference between governing New Democracy and main opposition SYRIZA stands at 8.3 percentage points, after the speeches of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and the president of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras at the Thessaloniki International Fair, considered for decades a weathervane for the Greek political climate.

Specifically: New Democracy garnered 32.3% (from 32.1%) of respondents in terms of vote preference, SYRIZA 24% (from 23.9%), PASOK – KINAL 10.6% (from 11.5%), communist KKE 6.1% (from 5.1%), the Hellenic Solution 5.1% (from 5.4%), MeRA25 3.6% (from 3.5%), followed by National Creation 1.7%, and the Greeks for the Homeland 1.2%. About 7.4% of respondents appear undecided.

Thessaloniki Intl’ Fair winners

Current PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis seems to have been more convincing during his presence at the Thessaloniki International Fair, as hot almost twice as many positive reactions as concerns suitability for the post than opposition leader and former PM Alexis Tsipras. The prime minister gained 2 points compared to the previous poll, garnering 47%. Accordingly, Alexis Tsipras appears by 2 points stronger, with 27%.

Regarding the popularity of political leaders, Kyriakos Mitsotakis remains the most popular political leader, with 46.6% stating that they “have a (probably) positive opinion” of the prime minister, while the second most popular is Alexis Tsipras (26, 6%) relegating KINAL_PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis to third place (24.2%), after some time. They are followed by KKE’s Dimitris Koutsoubas (24%), MeRA25’s G. Varoufakis (15%) and Hellenic Solution’s Kyriakos Velopoulos (11.7%).

The most likely scenario for a coalition government

The “warning” of Kyriakos Mitsotakis about political monstrosities, at the Thessaloniki International Fair, opened the scenario for the formation of possible cooperation governments.

If an independent government does not emerge from the elections, 35.7% of the respondents say they would like to see a coalition government between ND and PASOK (up from 35.3 in the previous survey). A much lower percentage of 25.1% (from 20.6) prefers a SYRIZA-PASOK government and only 4.6% (from 2.4%) wants a ND-SYRIZA co-government.

The Turkish people are friends, say 7 out of 10 Greeks

Set against the background of the message that PM Mitsotakis sent to  Turkish citizens from the United Nations platform, that Greece does not threaten Turkey, the poll’s question has special relevance: “Are Turkish people friends or enemies?”

68% answered that the Turkish people are friends
19% answered that they are enemies
and 13% did not answer

In fact, in the corresponding question asked in a poll in Turkey by the Metropoll company, 64% of Turks consider the Greeks friends and not enemies.

Erdogan’s “Mitsotakis does not exist”

Regarding the provocative rhetoric of Recep Tayyip Erdogan towards Greece, and specifically what he said about Mitsotakis being “nonexistent” , the majority (43.3%) consider that it not only cannot damage the image of the Greek prime minister inside the country , but it is also good for him, in contrast to the 22.6% who think it is bad.

“No” to subsidies – The vast majority (81%) want a reduction in VAT

Of particular interest is the finding that 8 out of 10 think the government should reduce VAT to address high prices and inflationary trends. On the contrary, only 9% are in favor of the subsidy policy (fuel pass, power pass, etc.) as a solution to inflation.

Finally, when it comes to the increases in electricity bills and energy increases that households have to face this winter, one in two admits that they have not taken any energy saving measures.