ATHENS, May 25 (Xinhua) -- The ruling New Democracy (ND) party in Greece maintained a 3.1 percentage point lead over main opposition PASOK, in an MRB opinion poll appearing in the Sunday edition of Eleftheros Typos newspaper.

    More specifically, to a question on which party they would most likely vote for if elections were held the following Sunday, 31.1 percent of the respondents opted for ND, and 28 percent for PASOK, followed by 6.9 percent for the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), 14.1 percent for the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) parliamentary alliance, and 4.1 percent for the Popular Orthodox Rally party (LAOS), while 3 percent said they would cast blank or invalid ballots and 9.2 percent were undecided.

    The MRB Hellas poll was conducted by telephone interview on May20 and 21, on a sampling of 1,005 respondents throughout Greece. In a separate opinion poll conducted by ALCO, appearing on Sunday in the Proto Thema weekly newspaper, ND maintained a 1.8 percent lead over PASOK, while SYRIZA posted a 3.1 percent decline with respect to the survey company's previous poll.

    More specifically, to a question on which party they would vote for if elections were held the following Sunday, 27.5 percent of the respondents preferred ND, and 25.7 percent preferred PASOK, followed by 6.8 percent for the KKE, 11.2 percent for SYRIZA, and 3.5 percent for LAOS, while 2.9 percent said they would vote for some other party, 5.1 percent said they would cast blank ballots, and 17.3 percent were undecided.

    The ALCO poll was conducted on May 21 to 23 on a sampling of 1,000 people nationwide.