Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party’s official candidate for the municipality of Athens, Kostas Bakoyannis, is given an impressive lead – 33.8 percent of respondents – in a latest opinion poll conducted ahead of the May 2019 local government elections.
The 40-year-old Bakoyannis, the outgoing regional government of central Greece, is the son of former Athens mayor and foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis and the nephew of ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis. He is also the grandson of late Greek prime minister Constantine Mitsotakis.
Athens is the biggest and most populous municipality in Greece and the center of the greater Athens area, where roughly half of Greece’s population resides.
The poll was conducted by the firm Opinion Poll between Jan. 25 through Jan 30 on a sample of 1,002 households in Athens.
In terms of other candidates, Pavlos Geroulanos is given 8.5 percent. He is backed by the KINAL party, mostly coalescing around the once-dominant socialist PASOK party. Geroulanos, in fact, served as culture minister in George Papandreou’s government between 2009-2011.
The candidate fielded by ultra-nationalist and extreme right-wing Golden Dawn (Chryssi Avgi) party, Ilias Kasidiaris, is preferred by 7.9 percent of respondents. Kasidiaris is current a deputy with Golden Dawn.
The most noteworthy result in the poll, beyond Bakoyannis’ apparent commanding lead, is the very disappointing result for ruling SYRIZA’s candidate, current deputy labor minister Nassos Iliopoulos. The latter polls a disappointing 6 percent.
A vast majority of respondents, 65.8 percent consider garbage collection/sanitation as the Greek capital’s biggest problem, followed by crime, 26.6 percent, road maintenance, traffic, lack of parking spaces and the impact of illegal migration on the municipality.
