A survey ordered by the European Parliament on the strength of parties in all EU member-states in the run-up to May’s European Parliament election shows that New Democracy maintains an 11.3 percentage point lead over ruling SYRIZA.
The survey focuses exclusively on the Europarliament elections and cites data from, among other sources, a poll conducted by Metron Analysis for To Vima and from a Rass survey conducted for the in.gr news site.
New Democracy garnered 36 percent versus SYRIZA’s 24.7 percent.
Extreme right-wing Chrysi Avgi places third with 8.6 percent followed by the Movement for Change (7.9 percent), and the Greek Communist Party (6.7 percent).
Three parties that are represented in the Greek Parliament failed to pass the three percent threshold to win an MEP seat. The Centrists’ Union garnered 2.6 percent, To Potami party received 1.5 percent, and the Independent Greeks (SYRIZA’s former junior coalition partner) received only 1.4 percent.
Among non-parliamentary parties, the right-wing, pro-Russia Elliniki Lysi (Greek Solution) party garnered 2.2 percent, while two SYRIZA splinter parties, LAE (Popular Unity) and Plefsi Eleftherias (Sailing to Freedom) garnered 1.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
Distribution of MEP seats
Based on the percentages in the survey, New Democracy would receive nine seats and Syriza would be allotted six seats.
The centre-left Movement for Change, Golden Dawn, and the Greek Communist Party (KKE) would each receive two seats.
The European Parliament’s survey deals with each member-state individually and utilises opinion polls conducted within those countries.
Hence, it is not a regular survey but rather a projection of the results based on data collected from variois sourcces up until 30 January.