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ELECTION

‘Green Party voters most likely to change sides’

Almost a quarter of Green Party support could consider voting for one of the centre-right Alliance coalition parties, a new survey has shown.

'Green Party voters most likely to change sides'

The Green Party, part of the centre-left “red-green” coalition, has been the major success story in the opinion polls in recent months with support running above 10 percent, double the figure achieved at the 2006 general election.

The party’s coalition parties have been able to ride on the success of the Green Party’s attractive force among the urban middle-classes as both the Social Democrats and Left Party persistently poll below their 2006 election results.

But a new survey by Novus Opinion has shown that much of this new found support is fickle, with 24 percent of respondents indicating that they would be prepared to switch sides in a general election and back one of the centre-right Alliance coalition parties.

Despite their historically low polling figures, the Social Democrats are however able to lay claim to the most loyal supports of all the parliamentary parties with only 5 percent responding that they could consider changing sides.

Among the Alliance coalition parties the Christian Democrats, who have also suffered in recent voter polls, can lay claim to the most loyal backers, with only 6 percent prepared to change bloc.

In general 12 percent of the centre-right bloc can consider voting for the centre-left, while nine percent could consider switching in the opposite direction. The Centre Party was shown to have the most mobile supporters of the Alliance parties, with 21 percent prepared to switch blocs.

The survey also canvassed voter opinion on policy areas. The majority of respondents stated that the Alliance government has the best policies for business, the economy, and law and order issues, while the red-greens were strongest within social insurance and welfare, the environment and equality.

67 percent of those polled stated that the Alliance parties stand on the side of the well off, while only 4 percent thought so of the red-greens. In turn 58 percent considered the red-green parties to stand on the side of the less well-off, while only 13 percent considered the statement to characterize the Alliance parties.

Novus Opinion interviewed 1,000 people of voting age for the survey which was published on May 25th.

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