Bruising poll shows dissatisfaction with Christodoulides

A poll released on Sunday showed Nikos Christodoulides’ popularity to have been greatly diminished since his election as President a year ago.

The poll, commissioned by newspaper Phileleftheros and carried out by Pulse Market Research during the last week of February, showed just 26 per cent of Cypriots to be satisfied with Christodoulides, while 69 per cent are dissatisfied with him.

These figures represent an unprecedented drop in public satisfaction with Christodoulides, who just a year ago had satisfied 41 per cent of respondents in a poll commissioned by the same company.

The figure of 26 per cent is lower than any recorded by Christodoulides’ predecessor Nicos Anastasiades during his 10 years in office.

Christodoulides, according to the poll, has least satisfied people aged between 40 and 59. Just 19 per cent of voters in that age bracket expressed satisfaction with him, while 78 per cent expressed the opposite opinion.

Akel voters and people who voted for Andreas Mavroyiannis last year also expressed dissatisfaction with Christodoulides, with satisfaction rates among those groups hovering around 10 per cent.

In better news for Christodoulides, he has satisfied 52 per cent of those who intend to vote for Diko in June’s European elections.

Satisfaction with Christodoulides’ handling of the economy is also at a lower rate than that ever recorded by Anastasiades, at just 25 per cent. This once again represents a stark drop from last year, when 37 per cent of respondents expressed satisfaction with Christodoulides’ handling of the economy.

There was not a single demographic in which more people expressed satisfaction than dissatisfaction with Christodoulides’ handling of the economy. The highest rates were among his own voters from last year, at 43 per cent, and those intending to vote Diko in June, at 42 per cent.

People aged between 18 and 39 years old were also markedly dissatisfied with Christodoulides’ handling of the economy, with just 22 per cent expressing satisfaction and 70 per cent expressing dissatisfaction.

On the matter of the Cyprus problem, Christodoulides has satisfied a lower proportion of voters than any single year’s polling regarding Anastasiades or even his predecessor Demetris Christofias.

Just 27 per cent of people said they were satisfied with Christodoulides’ handling of the Cyprus problem. However, the proportion of people who are dissatisfied, 64 per cent, is lower than the proportion who expressed dissatisfaction with Anastasiades’ handling of the Cyprus problem in 2022 and 2021, and with Christofias’ in 2012.

Men are markedly more satisfied with Christodoulides’ handling of the Cyprus problem than women, with satisfaction rates of 32 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

Older respondents were also much more satisfied than younger respondents, with 36 per cent of voters aged 60 or above expressing satisfaction with Christodoulides’ handling of the Cyprus problem, compared to just 16 per cent of those aged between 18 and 39.

Christodoulides’ net popularity has fallen into negative numbers according to the poll, with 47 per cent of respondents expressing a positive opinion of him and 49 per cent a negative opinion.

This comes in stark contrast to the previous year’s poll, in which 67 per cent of voters had expressed a positive opinion of him and just 29 per cent had expressed the opposite sentiment.

Both Anastasiades and Christofias saw net popularity rates fall into negative numbers in the final two years before they left the presidency.

Christodoulides is markedly less popular among highly educated respondents, with 40 per cent of those with postgraduate qualifications expressing a positive view of him, compared to 49 per cent of respondents who completed secondary education only.