Christodoulides’ support drops slightly but still ahead- poll

The latest poll on the presidential elections appears to show that since October, favourite, Nikos Christodoulides has seen a slight drop in support while Andreas Mavroyiannis’ support has grown.

However, Christodoulides, who is running as an independent backed by centre-right Diko and socialist Edek, remains the clear favourite, according to the Politis poll carried out by Noverna and published on Sunday.

According to the results analysed by Politis, despite a drop in support of 3 per cent “falling below the psychological barrier of 30 per cent”, the former foreign minister is still ahead in the race for the 2023 presidential elections. All the other minor candidates saw losses.

If Christodoulides two main rivals were above 20 per cent, his fall to under 30 per cent might be a problem, according to the analysis, but as they are not, this leaves Christodoulides still in the lead. The analysis says Christodoulides is bringing in 68 per cent of Diko voters but also 30 per cent of Disy and around 14 per cent of Akel.

Disy candidate Averof Neophytou also showed a marginal drop in support of 0.3 per cent, while Akel candidate Mavroyiannis saw his support grow by almost 3 per cent since October.

The paper deduces that Christodoulides will have a bigger battle in the first round than if he gets through to the second.

“The battle to defeat Nikos Christodoulides can only be fought in the first round,” it says, adding that if Neophytou manages to rally his party and garner 75-80 per cent of their votes, “he has hope against Mr Christodoulides”.

Based on the polling, it said, all the new inflows to the Neophytou camp are Disy voters who had initially moved towards Christodoulides.

The same is true in the case of Mavroyiannis, it said, adding that he was likely to get more than 60 per cent of Akel voters and strengthen the support he has from Diko and Edek but also from the unofficial support he has within the Green party.

Overall, according to the poll, Christodoulides leads with 29.5 per cent, followed by Neophytou with 17.2 per cent and Mavroyiannis with 15.9 per cent.

It also found that 88 per cent of respondents plan to vote in the elections. If the abstention and blank vote percentages is limited to 12 per cent, it would be similar to the 2008 election. It was 17.5 per cent in 2013 and 29 per cent in 2018. “Abstention in these elections will have an important role to play,” the article says.

The poll saw that in the 18-44 age group there was a greater fluidity when it came to voting and a greater tendency towards abstention.

If the base abstention rate remains at 12 per cent, this, it added, this would favour Christodoulides but if it moves closer to 30 per cent or more, as happened in 2018, then Christodoulides would probably have the biggest losses in relation to the percentages he receives today in the opinion polls.

The poll also found that one in five women surveyed – 20 per cent – said they could change their minds by election day while the same figure was 13 per cent among men.

As far as ages are concerned, the highest percentages of possible vote change were seen among those aged 18-44, suggesting this could prove negative for Christodoulides since he is attracing younger voters.