The emergence of two new parties is dramatically reshaping the political landscape, albeit only in terms of the opposition: on the one hand, it is rallying support for New Democracy, while on the other, it is leading to a decline in PASOK’s support, the collapse of the Freedom Movement, and the evaporation of SYRIZA, according to a RealPolls poll for Protagon.
The new RealPolls poll for Protagon, the first in a series conducted taking into account both the founding of “Hope for Democracy” as well as the announcement by Tsipras’s party, does indeed describe striking changes across half the political landscape—in the sense that what remains significant, though not yet decisive, is the battle for second place.
New Democracy’s lead, once again, is uncontested; on the contrary, the presence of two new political parties is rallying the party’s blue base—fresh from the convention—while the fragmentation of the opposition remains unresolved.
The new RealPolls survey for Protagon was conducted from May 23–25 on a nationwide sample of 1,667 people and indeed shows significant changes. In terms of voting intention, New Democracy shows much stronger cohesion and rises to 27.5%, gaining nearly three percentage points from the previous April poll (24.6%), when the fallout from the OPEKEPE and Makarios Lazaridis scandals had damaged the ruling party’s poll numbers and popularity.
This is, of course, an impressive rebound, but one that requires careful interpretation: the increase is mainly due to the shrinking of the undecided voter pool (from 18% in April to 9% today), as some of them shifted to the new parties while simultaneously mobilizing the New Democracy’s hard-core base.
Alexis Tsipras’s party emerges as the second-strongest force in voting intentions, with 14.1%, while Maria Karistianou ’s Hope for Democracy follows with 11.4%. Together, the two new parties account for 25.5%—a percentage that nearly matches that of New Democracy and, in any case, reflects the extent of the shift that traditional parties are experiencing toward the new parties.
The big losers in this comparison are clear: the Freedom Movement has dropped from 6.1% in April to 3.7% now, as a large portion of its base is migrating to the two new parties—the anti-establishment vote has found two fresher vehicles. In the election forecast, Zoi Konstantopoulou ’s party has plummeted from 10.7% to 4.5%.
PASOK-Movement for Change is suffering a 1.8-point drop in voting intention, from 10.4% in April to 8.6% now. The monthly loss amounts to 5.7 points in the election forecast, as Tsipras’s party competes with it and absorbs undecided voters from the center-left.
SYRIZA and MERA25 are virtually vanishing, as the dominance of the left-wing opposition appears, at least in the initial phase, to be shifting entirely to Mr. Tsipras. SYRIZA has dropped from 3.8% to 1.2% in voting intentions, and Yanis Varoufakis ’s party has fallen from 3.4% to 1.5%.
In the election forecast, New Democracy stands at 29.1%, above its performance in the European elections (28.31%) but below the April poll (30.6%), a fact attributed to the shrinking pool of undecided voters. Tsipras’s party is in second place with 16.1%, Karystianou’s party is third with 13.1%, and PASOK-KINAL is fourth, having fallen below the double-digit mark (9.4%). Fifth is the KKE with 7.4% (up from 6.3% in April), sixth is Greek Solution with 5.6% (up from 7% in April), seventh is Freedom Course with 4.5%, and eighth is Voice of Reason with 4.1% (up from 3.7%).
