Michaelides forms his own party

UNPERTURBED by the persistent corruption allegations that forced him to resign from the cabinet, former Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides has formed his own party.

Michaelides was elected leader of the new party, the Movement of Democratic Struggle (Adik), during its first meeting in Limassol on Sunday.

The ex-minister is confident the abuse of power allegations levelled against him by House watchdog committee chairman Christos Pourgourides – which precipitated his exit from government earlier this month – will not effect Adik’s image.

Adik’s inaugural conference is set for June.

Michaelides said his new party’s aims would be to promote unity and consensus on the vital issues of the day.

“Our goal and our ambition is to contribute to finding the golden mean for a commonly accepted strategy for dealing with the Cyprus problem and our course to a united Europe in the 21st century,” Michaelides said on Sunday.

He said Adik would co-operate with both the government and other parties on matters of economic and social policy related to EU accession talks.

Michaelides has been without a party ever since he abandoned Spyros Kyprianou’s Diko in the run-up to the February 1998 Presidential elections. Michaelides was among a handful of Diko figures who left the party in protest at its decision to back George Iacovou’s ill-fated challenge to President Clerides.

Michaelides backed Clerides and was rewarded with a return to the Interior Ministry after the President’s re-election victory.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.