Former prime minister Alexis Tsipras has brushed off election polls suggesting his leftist Syriza party might lose to its conservative rival in Greece's election, saying he had a large group of supporters not reflected by pollsters.
He was speaking on the last day of formal campaigning for Sunday's general election with polls showing a cliffhanger vote expected and some pointing to a win by the conservative New Democracy party.
Neither party, however, is expected to get the proportion of the vote needed - roughly 38 per cent - to gain a majority in the 300-seat parliament, meaning a coalition is a near certainty.
"There is a voting body that is below the radar, it is not being traced," Mr Tsipras said.
Five opinion polls on Thursday and Friday underlined the tightness of Greece's election campaign, offering different outcomes but all pointing to no outright winner when ballots are cast.
The winner of Sunday's vote will need to oversee deep economic reforms required for a £60 billion bailout brokered in August, a recapitalisation of the country's banks, and the unwinding of capital controls imposed this year to prevent an implosion of the financial system.
All the polls showed the leftist Syriza party of former prime minister Alexis Tsipras and the conservative New Democracy of Vangelis Meimarakis within spitting distance of each other.
Of the five polls published on Thursday and Friday, two put Syriza ahead, two had New Democracy ahead, and one was a tie.
Given that Greece's compliance with the euro bailout programme is at issue, many at EU headquarters in Brussels and in other European capitals would like to see a broad coalition emerging from the election.
But Syriza and New Democracy, while both pledging to uphold the bailout terms, disagree on pivotal matters such as freeing up the labour market, collective bargaining and immigration.
Syriza, forced to concede the bailout in August with the threat of a disorderly exit from the eurozone looming over the country, has ruled out any pact with New Democracy. It regards that party as part of an old guard partly responsible for Greece's economic woes.
Mr Tspiras pointed to what he sees as Syriza's success in getting the EU to consider ways of easing Greece's debt burden.
"We fought the battle until the end and won ground for the country because there will be a negotiation for debt reduction," he said.
EU sources say eurozone governments, Greece's biggest creditors, are ready to cap the country's debt servicing costs at 15 per cent of GDP annually over the long-term as part of the promised debt relief to help the economy grow.
New Democracy has been keen to highlight perceived credibility issues under Syriza, which swept to power in January on the promise of ridding the country of bailouts, only to agree to new stringent austerity terms six months later.
"The question is clear. Should we listen to false promises and wishful thinking, or move forward responsibly and with a national plan?" New Democracy leader Vengelis Meimarakis told cheering supporters in a central Athens square.
He said: "It's high time we did away with incompetence. The Syriza experiment ends on Sunday."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article