Samaras faces Greeks skeptical of his euro-exit warnings

By Jonathan Stearns and Nikos Chrysoloras

Frances Moschou, who supported Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in national elections in 2012, may now represent a bad omen for him as he fights for political survival.

Moschou, a 32-year-old from the Greek island of Rhodes, dismisses an argument that Samaras and his New Democracy party are reviving before snap elections on Jan. 25: voting for the anti-austerity Syriza alliance led by Alexis Tsipras would reignite the threat of Greece?s exit from the euro area.

?It?s all propaganda meant to scare people,? Moschou said on Jan. 2 as she served Greek wine and brandy to customers at Vrettos, a 106-year-old distillery tucked away in the old town of Athens below the Acropolis. ?I don?t believe it.?

Samaras risks finding the playbook he deployed to take office in 2012 is less effective this year because wage cuts and tax increases that have kept international aid to Greece flowing have also left voters feeling more pinched than ever.

The resulting public anger has made many Greeks deaf to Samaras?s message that the country, which emerged in 2014 from a six-year recession and is on the verge of balancing its budget, would risk being thrown back into financial turmoil by a Tsipras-led government.

New Democracy edged out Syriza in elections in June 2012 that followed months of political stalemate and speculation Greece might be forced out of the euro area -- a scenario that became known as Grexit. Polls now put Syriza, which has communist roots, in the lead.

?A Bluff?

?About 60 percent of the population believes that Grexit is a bluff,? said Nikos Marantzidis, a pollster and professor of political science at the University of Macedonia in the northern city of Thessaloniki. ...