Trying to lure back disaffected voters

All opinion polls published since the rail tragedy at Tempe, on the last night of February, that left 57 dead and exposed the shoddiness of the country’s rail infrastructure and operations, concur that the ruling conservative New Democracy party, although still in the lead, has lost significant ground.

The polls also show no increase in support for the leftist main opposition SYRIZA party, which nonetheless has closed the gap from its main rival.

If the polls are correct, it is very likely that the winning party will not attain a parliamentary majority even after the second election, widely expected to take place in late spring or early summer; it was already a given that the electoral system in place would prevent such a majority in the first election, whose likely date was pushed back from mid-April to sometime in May by the rail disaster.

Government officials, worried about the erosion of support, nonetheless express the hope that, with the emotional impact of the disaster receding, their poll numbers will improve. One such official told Kathimerini that the first reliable polls appear around Easter, this year on April 16.

Asked who is to blame for the disaster, about half of respondents reply “everyone,” meaning all previous governments, aware that Greece’s railways have suffered from decades of mismanagement and misdirected overspending. Over a quarter of the respondents lay the blame exclusively on the present government, while only about one in 20 blame the previous SYRIZA-led coalition.

Despite widespread global disaffection with politics, which has also led to a rise in the number of voters who have not decided which party they will back, it is clear that it is the governing party which has the biggest problem. It is likely that, with the passage of time, this anger towards all will be solely directed at the present rulers. Kathimerini understands that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his close aides believe that a lot will depend on government actions to address the problem and whether voters will be convinced that safety will improve. 

In a country where election turnout is low (57.78% in the last election) who turns out to vote and for what reason will be significant. Also, the rising support for some of the smaller parties means that more will enter Parliament, making a single-party overall majority less likely.