Political Polling Center-stage in Cypriot Election

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NICOSIA 001006 SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL CY SUBJECT: Political Polling Center-stage in Cypriot Election Campaign ¶1. (SBU) Summary: With the Cypriot presidential campaign in full-swing, pollsters are conducting and presenting "Gallups" nearly every week. Compared to the February 2003 race and earlier elections, their numbers have almost doubled. Cypriot media outlets conduct many surveys, and later devote significant coverage to their outcomes. The candidates themselves also poll, both for internal reasons and to trumpet successes in winning public support. Predictably, the studies have offered differing results, but all show a presidential race still too close to call. Political analysts are questioning whether the polls reflect public opinion or actually shape it; conventional wisdom holds that many Cypriot undecideds cast their ballots for the candidate last leading the race. In hopes of creating an impression of inevitability, incumbent President Tassos Papadopoulos depends heavily on remaining Number One in the polls, and Embassy contacts reveal his team is willing to massage the numbers to do so. End Summary. -------------- POLITICAL POLLING ON THE RISE -------------- ¶2. (U) Political polling in Cyprus has never been as prominent as in this campaign, slated to culminate with presidential elections in mid-February. The sheer quantity of surveys has doubled since 2003. With marketing and PR companies issuing results monthly -- but on a staggered basis -- voters nearly every week confront a different set of numbers. Commissioning many of the studies are Cyprus's three national TV stations (state-controlled CyBC, Sigma and Antenna) and two leading dailies (pro-government Phileleftheros and opposition Politis). Candidates Papadopoulos, AKEL-supported Dimitris Christofias, and DISY-backed Ioannis Kasoulides also order opinion polls. Some are for internal use, to gauge public reaction to platform planks, while others are released publicly and publicized, especially if the results show the candidate gaining ground. -------------- Picture Sometimes Murky, Deliberately So -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Embassy contacts in the marketing/PR industry claim the candidates' internal polls portray voter sentiments more accurately. Mainland Greek companies -- considered "neutral" and less prone to hanky-panky -- conduct most of these surveys. On the other hand, those polls that are released publicly are more dubious, with party staff often cooking the results to present a better picture of their respective candidates' electoral prospects. ¶4. (U) President Papadopoulos has led in every public poll since July, when Parliamentary Speaker Christofias formally abandoned the governing coalition and stood for election. Enjoying a significant early lead, the incumbent's numbers lately have fallen while his opponents' have risen, and most analysts now call the race a virtual dead heat. The most recent poll, ordered by Politis and released December 16, placed Papadopoulos in first place with 29.8 percent, Christofias a close second with 29.5, and Kasoulides trailing at 27.3; the 2.5 points separating them fall well within the margin for error. Earlier December surveys showed similar results. ¶5. (SBU) Pollsters and political analysts agree that the challengers' upsurge is due to the strong party mechanisms supporting them. Papadopoulos lacks this asset, but partly makes up for it with the power of the incumbency. Leading Greek pollster Elias Nicolakopoulos who works for Greek MEGA TV, told us that Papadopoulos's vote is "soft" and could change relatively easily. Christofias's and Kasoulides's are "hard," however, thanks to the strong backing of the parties supporting them, Cyprus's largest. Their tallies are more likely to increase than decrease in the run-up to the elections, Nicolakopoulos continued, as the parties energized their bases and sought to roll back defections (Papadopoulos reportedly holds 10-13 percent of the AKEL vote and 9-10 percent of DISY's.) -------------- Voter Inclination: Revealed or Directed? -------------- ¶6. (SBU) As expected, every survey begins with pollsters seeking voters' intentions on Election Day, and these numbers typically dominate media coverage of polling results. Running a close second, however, are responses to the question "Regardless of whom you are supporting, who do you think will win the election?" (Papadopoulos maintains a large lead here, scoring 40-45 percent). In explaining why this statistic merits reporting, Embassy contacts note that conventional electoral wisdom here holds that Cyprus's body of undecided voters often support the candidate leading in the final polls (actual results do not bear this out, however, since in 2003 and some earlier elections, the victor scored "upsets," at least in comparison to last-moment, pre-election surveys.) Campaign staffs battle for every "likelihood of victory" point in hopes of securing additional undecided voters. ¶7. (SBU) In recent weeks, media have carried prominent stories debating the lately-oversized role played by polls and pollsters. Do the innumerable surveys merely report voter intention, or do they shape it? they questioned. Commentators and politicians leaned toward the latter, lamenting that, in such a close election, "number crunchers" might have as much a role in determining the outcome as candidates' statements and policies. None was particularly convincing in arguing the need for change, however. -------------- --- PAPADOPOULOS STRUGGLES TO PRESERVE WINNER'S AURA -------------- --- ¶8. (SBU) Maintaining a lead in the polls is of fundamental importance to Papadopoulos's campaign team. Critics claim his government times "good news" initiatives, from an early-December fuel tax reduction to an increase in pensions, to coincide with opinion poll taking. According to contacts, Papadopoulos's campaign manager, former Foreign Minister George Lillikas, has instructed his team to emphasize the "likelihood of victory" polling at every opportunity, aiming to create a public perception that the incumbent is the inevitable winner. ¶9. (SBU) Christoforos Christoforou, an independent elections analyst and communications professor, believes that Lillikas, who is a professional pollster, counts on the average person's inability to correctly analyze the polls, and is attempting to project "likelihood of victory" as the most important result in opinion polls. At the same time, the former FM is trying to divert attention from the fact that Papadopoulos is losing ground, Christoforou claimed. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶10. (SBU) Projecting an air of inevitability and staying silent on platform specifics made sense when Papadopoulos faced only Ioannis Kasoulides, a relatively inexperienced politician recently tarred-and-feathered for his "traitorous" support of the 2004 Annan Plan. In Dimitris Christofias, however, the President must confront Cyprus's most popular politician, who is backed by its strongest and most cohesive party. Papadopoulos's team took a risk by turning the spotlights on opinion polls and trying to use them to shape public opinion; losing the aura of a winner would be catastrophic. As analyst Christofou argued, "soft" voters are as quick to jump off the bandwagon as jump on. SCHLICHER