Antonis Samaras

With just a week to go before local authority elections and two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, party leaders ratcheted up their campaigning over the weekend as new opinion polls put New Democracy, which leads the ruling coalition, and the left-wing opposition SYRIZA neck and neck.

PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos is due to address his party’s MPs on Friday in a bid to boost their morale a day after Prime Minister Antonis Samaras sought to drive his lawmakers on to the local and European Parliament elections later this month.

The head of the National Union of Judges and Prosecutors, Vassiliki Thanou-Christofilou, on Thursday rebuked claims by Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris that Justice Minister Haralambos Athanasiou and judges aim to turn the trial of MPs of the ultra-right party into “a television spectacle.”

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Thursday defended his conservative government's record while launching a vehement attack on leftist opposition SYRIZA.

Speaking to the parliamentary group of his New Democracy party, Samaras said the government had managed to put the Greek economy back on the road of recovery.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s proposals, presented yesterday, for a constitutional review represent a radical response to demands from Greek citizens for a complete overhaul of the country’s political system.

By Costas Iordanidis

A new opinion poll on voting intentions for European Parliament elections shows leftist opposition SYRIZA ahead of conservative coalition leaders New Democracy by 2 percent.

Conducted by Pulse for the weekly To Pontiki newspaper, the survey will be published on Friday.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Wednesday presented his party’s proposals for sweeping changes to the Greek Constitution, heralding reforms that would reduce the terms of state officials and increase the accountability of ministers as well as the transparency of political parties.

The stability of the Greek government will be put at risk if the center-left Olive Tree (Elia) alliance does not perform well in the May 25 European Parliament elections, PASOK leader and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras insisted on Tuesday that there is no prospect of the coalition collapsing after this month’s local and European Parliament elections.