By Charlie Charalambous
SPYROS Kyprianou’s Diko party is teetering on the brink of civil war following a backlash against Friday’s decision to expel two prominent members from its ranks.
Yesterday Diko’s former Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas joined the fray and called on the party to stop causing self-inflicted wounds.
But the Diko hierarchy remained steadfast in its decision to punish what it labelled “rebels, deserters and turncoats”.
In a statement yesterday, Moushiouttas pleaded for calm and demanded that the Diko leadership have “second thoughts about victimising party activists”.
Moushiouttas said he remains opposed “in principle” to the leadership’s political decisions, and said it was now time for the party to launch a damage limitation exercise, not an extended witch-hunt.
Ruffled by the growing mutiny within, a Diko statement pulled no punches: “The people of the Democratic Party do not vote for rebels, do not vote for Alexis Galanos, because they abhor the revolt as a phenomenon of political immorality,” it said.
The party statement said Diko would have no qualms about treating persistent dissenters as “enemies”.
On Friday, Diko’s executive committee expelled deputy Alexis Galanos and central committee member Petros Voskarides for defying the party’s decision to back nominally independent candidate George Iacovou, who also has the backing of Akel, in next month’s presidential elections.
Diko vice president and former Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides also faces disciplinary proceedings for his anti-Iacovou stance.
To compound the split within the party, leading member Eleni Theocharou has also said she is quitting.
But the bitter exchanges between those who back the rebels and the leadership continued yesterday, when another long-time member, Polyvios Kolokos, implied that the executive committee should resign instead.
“I stand solidly behind all those Diko members who have courageously opposed the unprecedented policies of the party,” said a letter sent by Kolokos to the executive committee. “Others, of their own volition, should abandon the centre of decision making.”
A defiant Kolokos said he would not budge from his pro-rebel stance. “I will always be a member of the party whether you (central committee) like it or not,” he wrote.
Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades said he regretted the crisis within Diko, but added that he hoped the party would soon unite and help Disy to form the next government.
With those expelled also refusing to budge, Diko is in danger of self- destructing well before polling day on February 8, political observers believe.
