Greece's conservative opposition has maintained a lead over the ruling Socialists, with three quarters of Greeks opposed to a new government austerity package aimed at avoiding default, an opinion poll showed on Friday.
The government has been forced to come up with new five-year austerity measures, which are set for a crucial vote in parliament next week, to secure continued EU/IMF funding under a 110 bln euro ($157 bln) bailout package agreed last year.
Greece's international lenders, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, have urged all Greek parties to support the package as they discuss a new bailout.
Athens is not expected to be able to return to bond markets next year and depends on international support to avoid defaulting on its crushing debt.
The conservative opposition has firmly refused to support the belt-tightening, arguing that the policy mix is overtaxing the economy and driving it deeper into recession. The survey by pollster MRB, carried by centre-right newspaper Eleftheros Typos, showed Prime Minister George Papandreou's PASOK party trailing the New Democracy conservatives by 2.1 percentage points.
In a previous MRB poll in November, the socialists led the conservatives by 4.1 percentage points.
Assuming elections were held at once, the poll gave New Democracy 22.9% against 20.8% for PASOK, with the communist party following in third place with 8% and far right LAOS with 5.4%, while 24.8% of those asked were undecided, would not vote or cast a blank ballot.
Papandreou, who ditched his former finance minister last week in a reshuffle aimed at shoring up support for his government, survived a confidence vote in parliament but has seen no rebound in public opinion.
"The cabinet reshuffle by the prime minister and the vote of confidence he got in parliament did not suffice to reverse the signs of collapse in the governing party and New Democracy's momentum," the paper said.
The poll also showed that 73.1% of Greeks disagreed with the measures — more taxes, cuts in government spending, privatisations — contained in the medium-term austerity package, which needs to pass parliament before Athens gets its next 12 bln euro loan tranche.
