Pivotal events on the campaign trail

The road to Sunday's national elections has been colored by a series of events, developments and choices, the dynamics of which in terms of shaping the electoral outcome will become clear in the next couple of days.

When on April 22 the elections were set for May 21, Greece was still reeling from the aftershocks of the deadly railway collision at Tempe. The initial feeling was that the tragic incident would exact a heavy political toll on ruling New Democracy. However, this was not to be, due the party's management of the event, the way the opposition sought to reap political gains, but also because of problematic developments that occurred to the right and left of the conservatives. 

With the formal start of the election period, a major crisis erupted within the nationalist Greek Solution party, which, amid serious accusations of "black money," culminated in the...