THE 10,000 Cypriots who study abroad were the focus of the latest electioneering wrangles as the political parties yesterday scrapped over whether or not to set up election booths in foreign countries.
Ruling DISY is the only party to support the idea of erecting polling centres in Britain, France, Germany and Greece so that students can cast their vote away from home in May.
Over 5,000 Cypriots study in Greece, over 3,000 in Britain, about 1,000 in the US and another 1,000 scattered throughout the rest of Europe and Australia.
In previous elections, parties paid for their student faithful to fly back to Cyprus and cast their votes.
DISY deputy, Christos Pourgourides, suggested the idea in an effort to give students an opportunity to vote more conveniently and at less expense.
Opinion polls suggest that the majority of students studying abroad would vote DISY.
Although the Ministry of Interior backs the venture, the logistics of setting up polling stations in foreign countries and arranging for students to cast their vote, have less than two months to be sorted out before the elections.
DISY has come under fire for not including Cypriot expats in the plan.
AKEL parliamentary spokesman Andreas Christou said student-only polling stations would be an unfair disadvantage to overseas workers.
KISOS deputy Doros Theodorou and United Democrats vice-president George Christofides complained about unequal treatment and questioned whether it was constitutional to discriminate in this way.
Acting DIKO president Nicos Cleanthous branded the proposal “illogical” and the Interior Ministry’s change of mind on the matter as “miraculous”.
The Interior Ministry were initially opposed to the proposal. AKEL added that presidential involvement in the matter could only reflect inside interests.
DISY denied that there was any discrimination between overseas workers and students, citing the difficulty of calculating the exact number of expat Cypriots, and the ease of rounding up students to draw up electoral rolls.
Pourgourides accused the opposition parties of abusing democracy and logic, by putting forward non-existent arguments.
He said the parties were unwilling to co-operate because they knew that 50 per cent of students overseas would vote for DISY.
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.
