Greek pro-bailout parties at all-time low, poll shows

Reuters
February 20, 2012

Support for the two parties backing Greece's technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos fell to an all-time low, a poll showed on Monday, a sign of rising popular frustration at austerity measures imposed to stave off a chaotic default.

The survey by pollster GPO was carried out on Feb 16-21, a week after lawmakers of the conservative New Democracy and the Socialist PASOK parties approved a harsh austerity package demanded by Greece's international lenders to keep bankrolling the country under a 130 billion euro bailout plan.

Euro zone finance minister gathered on Monday in Brussels to approve the bailout after they received written pledges by the two parties' leaders that they would stick to austerity even after an early election penciled in for April.

But this pledge is making pro-bailout politicians unpopular, the poll showed. Backing for New Democracy stood at 19.4 percent and at 13.1 percent for PASOK. Both parties dropped about two percentage points from a previous GPO poll in December.

"This is the lowest level for the two parties that we have ever recorded," GPO's head pollster Takis Theodorikakos told Mega TV, which commissioned the survey.

Leftist, anti-bailout parties - the Left Coalition and the Democratic Left - gained, the GPO poll showed.

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