Politics

SYRIZA is in intensive care and the prognosis for the leftist opposition is not good. Will it suffer a slow death or will it make a recovery and get a second chance? Is there a cure and, if so, will it work for this particular patient under these particular circumstances?

Two opposing visions for Turkey's future are on the ballot when voters return to the polls Sunday for a runoff presidential election that will decide between an increasingly authoritarian incumbent and a challenger who has pledged to restore democracy.

Voting ended at the diplomatic missions abroad on May 24 for the presidential election runoff, slated for May 28 at home, while citizens abroad can still cast their votes at border gates.

The Supreme Election Council (YSK) has reinstalled ballot boxes at 167 points in 151 representative offices across 73 countries for the runoff election.

Among the impressive reversals of the Sunday's election was Crete, where ruling New Democracy scored a major victory, its first in decades on the island. 

However, on another level, the evidence also suggests that Cretans have not moved as far to the right as the electoral map suggests. 

Ioannis Sarmas, the president of the Court of Audit, will be appointed as the caretaker prime minister by President Katerina Sakellaropoulou after party leaders were unable to reach an agreement on forming a coalition government Wednesday.

Sarmas is expected to visit the Presidential Mansion at 1 p.m., where discussions will be held regarding the selection of interim ministers.

A meeting of political party leaders convened by President Katerina Sakellaropoulou in a final attempt to form a coalition government after Sunday's inconclusive elections proved unsuccessful on Wednesday.

The loss of 12 points by SYRIZA, compared to the previous election, which constitutes a negative record for a party in opposition, has put it, and its leadership, on the back foot, with large spillovers to other parties.

SYRIZA's defeat at the polls on Sunday was a strategic defeat. It did not concern one person exclusively or the election campaign, nor does it point to certain organizational weaknesses. It is a combination of all three.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted Tuesday that Greece will be able to regain investment grade with a strong New Democracy government and that his "his victory over populism in Greece" serves as a lesson "for other liberal democracies."

"If you deliver real change for people, people will reward you," he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

The number of applications to volunteer as observers in the presidential election runoff on May 28 has exceeded 200,000, tripling the figure seen two weeks ago, a volunteer organization of election monitoring has said.