Greek PM vows to end austerity to overturn opposition's poll lead

Athens

GREEK Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is pledging to cut taxes and gradually end austerity as he seeks to woo voters and overturn a poll lead by the leftist opposition party Syriza ahead of a snap election.

At the helm of a coalition government since 2012, Mr Samaras has pursued unpopular reforms as part of a 240 billion euro (S$379 billion) EU/International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to pull Greece back from almost crashing out of Europe at the height of the eurozone crisis.

Opinion polls show radical leftist Syriza, which opposes Greece's international bailout programme, ahead of Mr Samaras' centre-right New Democracy party with two weeks until snap polls triggered by Parliament's failure to elect a…