SYRIZA

Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras refused to make on Minday any further comment on his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble’s claim that Greece would need more loans.

Stournaras was asked about the German minister’s comments when he left a meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras at the Maximos Mansion. “We put out a statement yesterday,” said Stournaras.

With SYRIZA leading in two new opinion polls on Thursday, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras accused the opposition party of risking “blowing everything into the air” by threatening to push for snap elections if it comes out on top in Sunday’s polls.

People wait at a bus stop beneath a campaign poster for New Democracy in central Athens on Wednesday.

With just a few days left before the crucial double elections on Sunday, party leaders intensified their campaigning on Wednesday with their position on the threat posed by neofacist Golden Dawn a key focus of much of the rhetoric.

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.

SYRIZA accused Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Friday of running scared after New Democracy rejected an appeal from the leftists for a televised debate between the two parties’ leaders, with the conservatives accusing the opposition of simply making the request for show.

SYRIZA confirmed on Tuesday, following some two weeks of deliberations, that Thrace-based Roma activist Sabiha Suleiman will not stand as a candidate with the leftist party in the May 25 European Parliament elections.

SYRIZA has opted for Oumit Mestan Osman, a member of the region’s Muslim minority, instead.