THE KISOS succession battle yesterday gathered pace, with senior party members jostling for position.
The party is to hold an electoral conference on July 22 to elect a successor to Vassos Lyssarides, who announced he would not stand again after KISOS took a hammering at the parliamentary elections in May. It will also vote on a new party leadership.
The conference will signal the official end of 82-year-old Lyssarides’ three-decade stint as party leader.
The leadership race is expected to be between front-runners Takis Hadjidemetriou and Yiannakis Omirou.
Hadjidemetriou failed to get re-elected on May 27, even though he received more preference votes than any other of the party’s candidate. He automatically made way for party leader Lyssarides, who took KISOS’ only seat in Nicosia.
Omirou, who was Defence Minister during the party’s brief stint in coalition with the Clerides government in 1998, did make it into the new House.
Veteran party deputy Doros Theodorou yesterday urged members to give 67-year-old Hadjidemetriou the chance to lead the party for a period of three years before a younger member takes over.
Hadjidemetriou — among the first to criticise Lyssarides for clinging on to power — has vowed that he would only stay at the party’s helm for three years if chosen.
“I think this is the only way for the party to regroup and get back its old faithful. Hadjidemetriou is a veteran socialist who represents the party and its proud history. So he could help the party back on its feet in this critical phase and then hand it over to someone else. We cannot let this opportunity slip through our fingers,” Theodorou said.
“If we carry on with the conflicts and confrontations we will shrink the party further. That’s why we should not have two candidates for the leadership. Because in war everything goes, the results will be devastating and I don’t think that we can afford more losses,” Theodorou warned.
But Omirou, the acting-chairman of the party, yesterday put forward a different opinion: “The elections must be conducted on the basis of democratic principles. It would be unthinkable for a socialist party to fear democracy. By having only one candidate we will betray our members’ desires,” he supported.
Marinos Sizopoulos, KISOS vice-chairman and one of Lyssarides’ closest allies, backed Omirou.
But some KISOS members feel Omirou should make way for Hadjidemetriou and then take over when he steps down after three years.
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.
