Socialism in Greece

The citizens will decide the fate of the country for the next four years, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said, in his last interview ahead of Sunday's general election.

Someone once said that "if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else." That's where SYRIZA finds itself right now, mired between governments of winners, losers, "special purpose" and anything else that may crop up by July.

Main opposition party SYRIZA announced on Thursday that MP George Katrougalos would not be running in national elections on Sunday, following statements he made in a television interview.

Giorgos Katrougalos, an MP for SYRIZA and a former foreign minister of the party, on Thursday announced his intent to withdraw from the upcoming elections after stating that social contributions for the self-employed may go up in a future SYRIZA government, something the party denied.

The narrative of "progressive governance" espoused by SYRIZA is constantly coming up against a brick wall put up by prospective candidate partners.

As a result the party has been constantly modifying its strategy combined with a dose of pressure on center-left PASOK.

In the latest poll four days before the election, ruling New Democracy maintains a 6.7 percent lead over main opposition SYRIZA, according to a poll by Alco on behalf of Skai TV. 

Projected results based on voting intentions gave the conservatives 32.7 percent of the votes ahead of SYRIZA with 26%. 

I recently asked an opposition SYRIZA official to name one good thing the New Democracy government has done these past four years. He paused for a few seconds and then tried to dodge the question, basically refusing to say anything positive about Kyriakos Mitsotakis' term in office.

Greece votes on Sunday in what is likely to be an inconclusive election, meaning short-term uncertainty as markets wait to see whether a coalition government or a second-round vote follows.

A recent discussion on institutions and the rule of law sparked controversy among the descendants of the pro-EU movement known as "We're Staying in Europe," which emerged in 2015 when Greece's leftist-led coalition raised concerns about the country's potential exit from the eurozone.

Fourteen years after a debt crisis that saw Greece nearly crash out of the euro, single parent Niki Klaoudatou says she worries more about money now than she did during the worst years of the country's economic meltdown.