The train collision disaster that occurred last month in central Greece is shaking up the general election landscape.
According to the Greek daily Kathimerini on the 20th (local time), the ruling New Democracy Party (ND, hereafter New Party), led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, saw its approval rating drop from 32% to 28.5% in recent polls. This is interpreted as a result of the core support base defecting amid rising government accountability for the train collision disaster.
What draws attention is that the votes lost by the New Party are not shifting to the opposition as an 'alternative' but are moving into the undecided voter bloc.
The support rate for Syriza, Greece's largest opposition party, remained unchanged at 25%, while the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) actually saw its support fall from 10.5% to 9.5%.
In contrast, the percentage of undecided voters who support no one rose from 9.5% before the disaster to 12.5%.
Since the head-on train collision on the 28th of last month in central Greece that claimed 57 lives, protests and strikes condemning the government's poor response have continued across Greece. The Greek prosecution indicted the stationmaster of Larissa Station on charges including professional negligence resulting in death, but the Greek public argues that the government’s long neglect of the railway’s poor system led to the major accident.
After the accident, the Minister of Transport resigned, and Prime Minister Mitsotakis issued a public apology, but they failed to calm the enraged public sentiment.
The anger and frustration over the worst train accident in Greek history are spreading into movements calling for the government’s resignation.
In a poll asking who is expected to win the upcoming general election, the New Party leads Syriza by a wide margin, 48% to 27%, but this is a sharp 10 percentage point drop compared to the 58% expectation a month ago.
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