Cypriots other than AKEL members have little faith in austerity package

 

ONE IN two Cypriots does not think the government’s economy package will end the financial crisis, according to a poll carried out on behalf of Ant1 TV station.

The economy package consists of a total six bills focusing on tax hikes with some cuts to pay and benefits for civil servants.

One in three of those asked said they did not know what the measures consisted of.

Agreement with the measures runs highest with voters of ruling party AKEL at 82 per cent.

Voters of other parties disagreed with 78 per cent of DISY members being the most critical.

Also disagreeing with the measures were 68 per cent of former coalition party DIKO members, 52 per cent of socialist EDEK members and 47 per cent of right-wing EVROKO.

EDEK and EVROKO voters who were the least supportive of the measures were also the most ignorant; 47 per cent of EVROKO and 43 per cent of EDEK and said they didn’t know the content of the package.

A total of 26 per cent of DIKO voters also declared ignorance, with 20 per cent for DISY and 12 per cent for AKEL.

All parties’ voters except those of AKEL lacked faith in the package’s ability to tackle the financial crisis.

Whereas 86 per cent of AKEL voters thought the crisis would be tackled by the measures, the rest thought otherwise.

DISY voters were the most sceptical at 83 per cent followed suit by EVROKO (82 per cent), EDEK (78 per cent) and DIKO (76 per cent).

When it came to whether the government (in general) could handle the financial crisis, nine out of ten AKEL voters answered in the affirmative.

All other party voters answered negatively with 93 per cent of DISY, 88 per cent of EVROKO, 84 per cent of EDEK and 71 per cent of DIKO all saying that the current government was unable to tackle the crisis.

The poll was done by EVRESIS company between August 17 and 23 and consisted of a total of 1,287 telephone interviews on a random stratified sample basis.

Visit www.ant1.com.cy to read the report.

 

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