“Socialists increase lead over Social Democrats,” headlines the Diário de Notícias two days away from Portugal’s general elections. Incumbent prime minister José Sócrates’ Socialist Party bids fair to take 38% of the vote according to a poll published in the Lisbon daily, as against 30% for the conservative opposition Social Democrats (PSD) led by Manuela Ferreira Leite. “Sócrates is asking his supporters to keep calm,” reports the paper: he knows he has no shot at the absolute majority he won in 2005, seeing as his administration is fairly unpopular. But nothing is decided yet and Ferreira Leite says she is “thoroughly convinced” she will win. As to the other parties currently in the Portuguese parliament, the anticapitalist Left Bloc (BE) could come in third ahead of the People’s Party (right-wing) and the Communists, who are running neck and neck.
So who is going to run the country? Diário de Notícias explains that the PS or PSD could take the helm even with a minority mandate, but various alliances may still be in the cards.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku. 