DISY submits disputed electoral proposal to House

Ruling DISY on Thursday submitted to parliament a proposal to raise the electoral threshold to 5 per cent.
DISY’s intention has already drawn the fire of smaller parties, which called the measure undemocratic.
DISY said it wants to raise the bar to 5 per cent from 1.8 per cent so that it was in line with practices in other EU countries and contribute to the better and more efficient operation of parliament.
A party spokesman said they considered the reactions hasty and exaggerated.
The party said Cyprus had the lowest threshold in the EU with most other members – 20 out of 28 – having it set at 4 per cent or 5 per cent or higher.
Greece and Spain have a 3 per cent threshold.
“We wonder if those calling the measure undemocratic are claiming that countries like Germany, Belgium, and eight others in the EU, which have a 5 per cent threshold, do not have democratic regimes,” Petros Demetriou said. “Are they claiming perhaps that only Cyprus has democracy?”
EVROKO chairman and sole MP Demetris Syllouris said the attempt was unethical, coming just a few months before the May 22, 2016 elections.
Syllouris said it reduced the standard of the island’s representative democracy.
“I think that anyone who supports the change in the electoral law has ulterior motives,” he said. “These should be sought either in the financial scandals or the Cyprus problem or both.”

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.