With the short election campaign period formally ending at midnight on Friday, SYRIZA and New Democracy are making their final moves in order to attract undecided voters and rally supporters on Sunday. The polls so far suggest that the two major parties will receive 62%-63% together, with the first party expected to have a 2 to 3-point-lead. Due to the fragmentation in Parliament though, whoever wins the elections may have to form a coalition with 1 or 2 smaller parties.
Although New Democracy has easily managed to close the difference from SYRIZA during the campaign period, analysts point out that this is due to provisional party leader Evangelos Meimarakis managing to rally a huge percentage (80% to 85%) of its traditional voters. With SYRIZA having only rallied about 60 to 62% of its voters though, Alexis Tsipras is still hopeful for a positive result on Sunday.
At his speech in Crete on Thursday, Mr. Tsipras underlined the need for the people to participate in the elections and asked for a another opportunity to implement his plans. Abstention will benefit New Democracy and the old political system, he argued, making the people’s support necessary. “We are not asking for a second chance, because we were not allowed to take advantage of the first one. We are asking for a mandate to continue the major effort we started together in January. We are asking for the first opportunity for the Left to government this land” he stressed.
On the other hand, the main slogan at the speech of Mr. Meimarakis in Athens was to “end the Tsipras experiment on Sunday”. With former party leaders and Prime Ministers Kostas Karamanlis and Antonis Samaras in attendance, Mr. Meimarakis argued that this party has managed to cover a 20-point distance in 40 days and argued that “not a single vote must go to waste”. According to Mr. Meimarakis, the dilemma on Sunday will be choosing “to go back, to false promises and lies, or forward to truth […] to trust bluffs and experiments or responsibility and a national plan”.
