Small parties feeling the squeeze

With Sunday's election just days away, ruling SYRIZA and opposition New Democracy have embarked on a strategy to ensure that the country's smaller parties come up short and do not deny them crucial votes.

It is seen as imperative to the governing leftists'electoral aspirations  that no votes are lost to Yanis Varoufakis' MeRA25. Likewise, the conservatives do not want to leak votes to far-right Greek Solution. Moreover, neither wants to lose votes to neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, which recent polls have suggested is already on the slide.

ND, which polls suggest could win outright and form a majority government, has seen as positive the absorption of some 4.18 percent of voters from Greek Solution during the European Parliament elections in May. Those voters, party officials believe, could be enough to help ND form a majority government on Sunday.

No time was wasted by...