Greek pro-bailout conservatives regain lead - polls | Reuters - 0 views
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New Democracy would get between 25.6 percent and 27.7 percent of the vote if the election was held today, according to the polls by Eleftheros Typos/Pulse, Proto Thema/Alco, Real News/MRB, To Vima/Kapa and Ethnos/MARC. SYRIZA's support was between 20.1 and 26 percent.According to the Pulse and MARC polls, New Democracy and the next-biggest pro-bailout party, the socialist PASOK, would together win a parliamentary majority of between 11 and 16 seats in the country's 300-seat parliament.
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Sixty-five percent of respondents in the Ethnos/MARC survey said that the country should "negotiate hard" to revise the bailout's terms, while 54 percent believed that there was no way Athens could leave the euro. A total of 82 percent said the country should keep the single currency.
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"We're not willing to pour money into a bottomless pit," German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung.IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Greeks had to take responsibility for their fate, adding that deprived children in Africa needed more help than people in Greece."I think they (the Greeks) should help themselves collectively ... by all paying their tax," she was quoted as saying in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper.
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Analysts said New Democracy's lead was precarious. "These polls show that people got scared from SYRIZA's lead in previous surveys," said political analyst John Loulis."This is still a very tight race. New Democracy has a small advantage but whoever called them favourites would be dead wrong," he added.
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SYRIZA, led by its charismatic 37-year old leader Alexis Tsipras, is doing particularly well among the young who are particularly hit by unemployment, pollster Pulse said.New Democracy, by contrast, had a big lead among the over-60s, Pulse said.
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In a bid to woo anti-bailout voters, conservative leader Samaras said on Saturday Greece should be given more time to comply with a bailout term to generate about 11.5 billion euros in savings over the next two years."All new spending cuts ... should take place over four years, not two," he was quoted as saying by Real News.
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Without new bailout funds, Athens may run out of cash by end of June, newspaper To Vima reported, citing a memo compiled by former Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on May 11."From June 20, the government's available cash will cross negative territory to the tune of 1 billion euros," the document said, confirming earlier reports by finance ministry officials that Greece might run out cash by the end of June.