Greeks Fear Bankruptcy as Government Support Slips

An overwhelming majority of Greeks say their country is likely to go bankrupt, a poll found Friday, as support for a new coalition government eroded just over a month after it took office.

Over 65 percent of 2,000 people polled nationwide said Greece would ultimately be unable to break free of a national debt crisis despite a tough recovery plan followed under the supervision of the EU and the IMF for nearly two years.

In a separate question, 53.8 percent said the country would take over five years to get back on its feet.

And the new government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, a former European Central Bank deputy chief who took over on November 11 after a power-sharing deal between three political parties, is past its honeymoon phase with the public.

A combined total of 55.1 percent said the Papademos administration -- which includes ministers from the socialist, conservative and far-right parties -- was "as bad" or "worse" than expected.

A disagreement was opened between the unlikely coalition partners over the duration of the interim government, which is supposed to ratify a Eurozone bailout for the country and then hold snap elections.

The conservative New Democracy party wants the elections to be held in February but the other parties in government are in favor of giving Papademos more time to put a debt-saving bond rollover with creditors on track.

"This is a temporary, transition government to keep the country from going bankrupt," New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras said in a Thursday speech to the Hellenic-American chamber of commerce.

"(Its task is) to complete the 'haircut' of the old debt and restore the viability of our overall debt. All this will be decided over the next two months. That will be the end of it," Samaras said.

Opinion surveys have given Samaras' party a clear lead to win the election but he is unlikely to gain enough support to single-handedly form a government.

The latest poll on Friday gave New Democracy 20.7 percent of the vote over 12.1 percent for the socialist Pasok party of George Papandreou but only 140 seats in parliament, 11 short of what is required for an outright majority.

Greece is in the grip of a four-year recession set to continue next year, bringing the cumulative fall in economic output to 15 percent, according to EU estimates.

Official data on Thursday showed there were over 878,000 people out of work in the third quarter of the year, most of them women and persons aged under 30.

Nearly half of those polled by the MRB company -- 47.1 percent -- said they were currently unemployed.

Papademos this week warned that the economy could contract this year by more than 5.5 percent, a forecast included in a new budget approved only last week.