ATHENS – Complaining about New Democracy’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t helped the major opposition SYRIZA which has fallen further behind in polls to the ruling Conservatives.

A survey by the firm GPO gave New Democracy a 16.4 percent lead, 35.9-23.5 percent over the Leftists who continued to slide in popularity despite a barrage of criticism leveled at Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. 

That is up 0.8 percent over a previous finding although the government’s support fell 0.2 percent as the pandemic has raged on and Mitsotakis has gone back and forth over whether to be tough or lenient.

Other parties in Parliament continued to politically irrelevant and have no standing either there or with voters, the center-left Movement for Change (KINAL,) the KKE Communists, the ultra-populist Hellenic Solution and MeRa25 while 19.8 percent of respondents didn’t like any of them and 12 percent undecided.

That means almost one-third of Greeks oppose all parties in Parliament, showing the level of discontent with politics, the survey found, as reported by te business newspaper Naftemporiki.