By Martin Hellicar
NEW HORIZONS leader Nicos Koutsou yesterday blamed George Vassiliou’s United Democrats (UD) for the collapse of efforts to form a new broad-based Socio-democratic party.
“The United Democrats never believed in this (merger) effort, and when specific issues started to be discussed, and specific decisions to be taken, they started to cause problems,” Koutsou said at a morning press conference.
An irate Koutsou said his party was now no longer interested in joining forces with anyone and would plough its own furrow.
Last week, Edek, who have led efforts to form the new party, said they were excluding the New Horizons and UD from merger talks because Koutsou’s and Vassiliou’s parties could not bridge their foreign policy differences.
Edek said they would be continuing merger talks with the Movement for Political Renewal and the Realignment Movement, but both these groups are political small fry.
Centre-right Diko have since made an approach to Vassos Lyssarides’s socialist Edek, but Spyros Kyprianou’s party has given no indication of having abandoned its misgivings over the participation of the two movements in merger talks.
Continuing his attack on the UD, Koutsou claimed Vassiliou’s party had tried to exclude his party from merger talks by constantly bringing up the foreign policy issue. The UD favours attempts at reconciliation with the Turkish side, whereas Koutsou’s party are hard-line nationalists. Edek have said both the UD and New Horizons were guilty of trying to exclude the other from the merger.
Koutsou accused Edek of excluding his party and the UD without proper justification. The UD have already made it clear they consider merger efforts “dead” after the Edek decision to show them the door.
Koutsou went further: “We are not going to have any talks whatsoever with any other party. We are not interested whether Edek-Diko contacts start or not. We are turning over a new leaf.”
Koutsou’s party, like the Movement for Political Renewal and the Realignment Movement, have no house seats.
The UD have two deputies, Edek five and Diko eight.
Undeterred by the merger talks collapse, Edek states it plans to call the inaugural conference for the new party before the end of the year.
