Fascist Golden Dawn comes  third in the polls

Greece's ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party has increased its support among austerity-hit Greeks since entering parliament this year, and would emerge as the third largest party (10.5%) if elections were held now, a new poll showed on Thursday, Reuters reports. The poll showed support for the conservative New Democracy, which heads the country's pro-bailout coalition, had dipped to 25%  from 29.7%  in June, while backing for the radical leftist Syriza party also fell, by nearly 3 percentage points, to 24 %. The PASOK Socialists, junior partner in the ruling coalition, dropped to fourth place with 8% of the vote, while the other government ally, Democratic Left, saw support shrink nearly 2 percentage points to 4.5 %.

According to a survey by VPRC poll for the Ellada Avrio newspaper, SYRIZA is leading the polls with 30%, compared with 28% for the governing conservative New Democracy, while fascist Golden Dawn is polling at 12%.

The jobless rate, meanwhile, rose by a full percentage point to 24.4%  from 23.5% in the previous month, statistics service ELSTAT said on Thursday.