Five challenges for ruling party at the Euro elections

Government officials have developed a set of five tests to determine whether the June 9 European Parliament elections will be a success or failure.

While no one believes ruling New Democracy will lose the election, a mediocre result could spell trouble ahead. ND officials would like to see the party gaining around 33% of the vote, as it did in the last Euro elections. They would also like to see a winning margin over the second-place party of at least 15 percentage points, and the ND vote being greater than the sum of the votes for the center-left, that is SYRIZA, socialist PASOK and the New Left.

Another aim is to contain the leaking of conservative votes to the three far-right parties, which together won 12.82% of the vote in last year's national election. Finally, ND officials want to prevent Greek Solution, their main foe on the right, from notching serious gains...