A COALITION between AKEL, DIKO and possibly KISOS for next year’s presidential elections yesterday appeared the most possible scenario, as DIKO ruled out the idea of co-operating with ruling DISY.
Parties have already started wheeling and dealing to form alliances ahead of the February 2003 elections.
DISY was yesterday left in political isolation with a coalition between opposition parties AKEL, DIKO and KISOS beginning to fall into place.
The name of DIKO chairman Tassos Papadopoulos tops a list of possible candidates discussed by the emerging alliance.
Leftwing AKEL secretary general and House president Demetris Christofias, socialist KISOS chairman Yiannakis Omirou and veteran KISOS politician Takis Hadjidemetriou are also possible candidates.
Meanwhile rightwing DISY faces a dilemma, having to decide between Attorney-general Alecos Markides and Foreign Minister Ioannis Cassoulides, both of whom are interested for the presidency.
Papadopoulos yesterday ruled out co-operation between his party and DISY.
“Our basic position is that the current government must be replaced because its policies, especially its domestic administration, are wrong. Therefore it would be a contradiction to consider forming a coalition with DISY, which supports this government,” he said.
Replying to reporters’ questions, the DIKO leader confirmed that his name “tops the list of possible candidates.”
Papadopoulos was however adamant that opposition parties should first agree on a political framework before deciding the candidate for the elections, dismissing “efforts by some to impose their opinion and preconditions regarding a candidate.”
“If some DIKO members have such an attitude they are wrong,” he stressed, pointing to senior party officials who have refused to discuss names other than that of Papadopoulos.
Yet despite Papadopoulos’ insistence his party would not co-operate with DISY, its leader Nicos Anastassiades yesterday continued efforts towards an alliance with the centre party.
“If they consider co-operating with a communist party (AKEL) then why rule out an alliance with us who are ideologically nearer to them?” Anastassiades wondered.
“It looks like some parties fail to receive the message sent by voters during the municipal elections,” he argued, referring to the victory of DISY-backed Michalakis Zambelas, who beat the opposition coalition’s hopeful Kypros Chrysostomides to be elected mayor of Nicosia.
Anastassiades hit back at a report published by AKEL mouthpiece Haravghi yesterday, charging “knives were drawn between Cassoulides and Markides.”
“Just because the Kofinou slaughterhouse will close down, it does not mean Haravghi should must make predictions of fresh slaughters,” Anastassiades said, suggesting: “they should worry about their own slaughterhouse because we don’t have one.”
“The AKEL leadership has told the party’s faithful not to think,” he sniped.
AKEL deputy Andros Kyprianou said yesterday that his party would announce the name of the presidential candidate it would support in June.
He said AKEL had already started to work on “a political proposal which will be soon tabled before the other opposition parties for discussion in order to come down to an agreement.”
Kyprianou described Papadopoulos as “a possible and a strong candidate considered by AKEL bodies,” adding there were other names on the cards such as that of Christofias and Omirou.
“We need to make an enormous effort to change the current administration and in order to succeed we need KISOS and the other small opposition parties on our side,” Kyprianou stressed.
But KISOS was yesterday hesitant to make a commitment to either AKEL or DIKO.
“Co-operation with the other opposition parties is our main strategic policy,” KISOS vice chairman Sophocles Sophocleous said.
“The three parties need to agree on a common strategy before deciding on a common candidate,” he added.
Sophocleous did not rule out the possibility of his party contesting the first round of the elections independently.
According to Cyprus Mail information veteran socialist Takis Hadjidemetriou of KISOS has been proposed as a candidate by certain AKEL circles. However KISOS has not publicly supported Hadjidemetriou’s candidacy.
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.
