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The debate between the Greek party leaders will begin at 9:00 pm and with the exception of leader of Golden Dawn Nikos Michaloliakos it will involve the heads of all the current parliamentary parties, namely Alexis Tsipras (SYRIZA), Evangelos Meimarakis (New Democracy), Panagiotis Lafazanis (Popular Unity), Stavros Theodorakis (Potami), Dimitris Koutsoumbas (Greek Communist Party), Panos Kammenos (Independent Greeks) and Fofi Genimata (PASOK).

The debate will take place in the studio of the Greek state television ERT where the party leaders will sit according to the number of their MPs in the previous parliament.

Host to the central news on ERT Panos Charitos will coordinate the discussion and his colleagues from the six Greek television channels with national coverage will ask questions.

The party leaders will answer questions from six thematic rounds that include the following topics:

1st round - economy, development and unemployment.

2nd round - education, health, governance, social policy.

3rd round - migration policy and the refugee problem.

4th round - foreign policy and defence.

In the 5th round the journalists will have the right to ask the politicians a question of their own choice and during the 6th, the party leaders will be able to make their own statements and ask each other questions.

Photo: protothema.gr

The time for questions and answers will be strictly regulated. In the first five rounds, each question must be posed within 30 seconds and the answer should be provided within 90 seconds. A clarifying question relating to the answer can be asked within up to 15 seconds and the answer must be provided within 30 seconds.

In the sixth round, which will be divided into two sub-rounds, each of the leaders will be entitled to 90 seconds in each of them. The speeches will start in reverse order compared to that at the start of the debate, i.e. with the leader of the smallest parliamentary group.

The debate is anticipated with great interest since such swordplay took place before the parliamentary elections in October 2009 for the last time.

Analysts expect smaller parties to benefit from today's debate. "A small number of voters change their position as a result of a debate but on the other hand the political system is very unstable", political analyst Ilias Tsausakis states for the British newspaper The Guardian.

Sociologist Takis Teodorikakos says in turn that the debate will be of great importance to smaller parties. "The pre-election campaign is very short and the debate will be a wonderful opportunity for their leaders to make a good impression."

The second debate involving the two main opponents, leader of SYRIZA Alexis Tsipras and of New Democracy Evangelos Meimarakis will take place on 14 September.