Opinion polls indicate a race too close to call, with Tsipras struggling to maintain the narrowest of leads over his main opponent, center-right New Democracy leader Evangelos Meimarakis.
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Golden Dawn, founded as a neo-Nazi party three decades ago, is on course for third place.
Weakened within his own party, Tsipras resigned in order to force a snap election and, he hopes, win a stronger – and this time pro-bailout – mandate from voters. New Democracy wants tax incentives to attract investors, while Syriza sees taxes as a tool to redistribute wealth.
Meimarakis says he will invite Tsipras to form a unity government and a multi-party team to negotiate with the country’s creditors on how to lift the country out of crisis.
Gregor Gysi, a key politician of the German Die Linke party, and the Spanish Podemos party leader Pablo Iglesias, as well as Pierre Laurent, head of the French Communist Party, will join Tsipras on stage during his speech, according to the Syriza election center.
“Tsipras has a pool of undecided voters that (Syriza) could tap into, but the question is what will they actually do on Sunday”, Loulis said.
Meimarakis, 61, said his party intended to apply the terms of the bailout for a year before seeking to amend some of the terms. It is taking between 4 to 7 percent in polls.
“I firmly believe that the new government should be built with as many parties as possible”.
But having bitter experience of fragile coalitions, PASOK may not easily risk its already low popularity.
The Independent Greeks “pay the price of being a coalition partner of a government that has contributed to political instability in this country throughout 2015 and a coalition partner to a government which has been totally inefficient in managing the economy”, Sotiropoulos said.
Meanwhile, according to a poll conducted by ProRata for the left-leaning Efimerida ton Syntakton newspaper on Tuesday, Syriza came first with 28 percent, beating New Democracy by 4 percent. But polls suggest the right-wing party may not cross the 3 percent threshold needed to enter parliament. For one thing, voters are getting tired .
“These elections aren’t obviously going to change anything in a sense that both leaders of the biggest parties have agreed – and it was the only thing they actually agreed on – that anything that has been signed and passed through parliament on the latest bailout is not going to change”.
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Tsipras has already hinted at a blame game if another vote gets called.
