Athens: Greece is almost evenly split over a crucial weekend referendum that could decide its financial fate, with a 'Yes' result possibly ahead by a whisker, the latest survey showed Friday. The poll by the Alco institute said 44.8 percent of Greeks intend to vote 'Yes' and 43.4 percent are for 'No' making it the first published survey to give a lead to the 'Yes' vote ahead of Sunday's ballot. However the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, meaning it was still seen as too close to call.
The figures nevertheless confirmed other polling results suggesting a swing away from the 'No' vote urged by Greece's leftwing government towards the 'Yes' camp. The Alco survey, carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, after Greece imposed capital controls, found 11.8 percent Greeks were undecided ahead of the referendum.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's government is asking Greece's voters to vote 'No' to a technically phrased question asking if they are willing to accept more tough austerity conditions from international creditors in exchange for bailout funds. But EU leaders say the plebiscite is really about whether Greeks want to stay in the eurozone or not. They add that the question relates to a bailout package that is no longer available to Greece, having expired on Tuesday.
The text of the question being posed to voters is, "Should the deal draft that was put forward by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the Eurogroup of June 25, 2015, and consists of two parts, that together form a unified proposal, be accepted. The first document is titled 'Reforms for the Completion of the Current Programme and Beyond' and the second 'Preliminary Debt Sustainability Analysis'."
