Greek socialists maintain lead despite austerity - poll

Greece, a chronic violator of the euro zone's budget rules, is mired in its first recession in 16 years with the government scrambling to narrow the budget deficit by 4 percentage points to 8.7 percent of GDP this year.

An opinion poll conducted by pollsters Alco for newspaper Proto Thema showed the ruling PASOK socialists leading the conservatives by 9.2 percentage points -- 34.7 to 25.5 percent.

The socialists won a landslide election victory on Oct 4 last year on pledges to tax and spend to battle an economic crisis the conservatives failed to get to grips with. They hold a comfortable majority of 160 deputies in the 300-seat parliament.

Participants in the Alco poll were split on whether the government can lead the country out of its fiscal crisis -- 43.9 percent believe it can and the same percentage thinks not.

Asked whether the government had kept its election pledge not to burden low income people with taxes, 58.3 percent said it had not kept its word.

Another opinion poll by pollsters Marc for newspaper Ethnos showed the ruling socialists leading the opposition conservatives by 10.6 percentage points, with 52.2 percent saying the government has an action plan to tackle the fiscal crisis.

(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; Editing Bernard Orr)