By Evie Andreou
Main opposition party AKEL announced on Saturday its candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections in May.
AKEL’s central committee ratified the candidate list, but also approved a code of conduct the candidates should abide by.
“We have all witnessed lately the vilification of the parliament due to the behaviour of some of its members, thus we have a double obligation as people of the left, to be different,” AKEL general-secretary Andros Kyprianou said before the central committee.
He added that AKEL’s parliamentary candidates should be ones which “one may disagree politically with, but be able to also credit them with honesty, diligence and modesty”.
The world discredits politicians, he said, “perhaps because politicians first devalue everything they supposedly serve”.
Kyprianou said that those on the left should be “special” in and out of parliament and should avoid “stagy populist performances, false handshakes and empty promises”.
He added that the code of conduct binds not only candidates but also party members. “Everyone’s behaviour will be judged based on this code,” he said.
Among the Nicosia candidates are Kyprianou himself and the former head of the Cyprus Tourism Organisation Marios Hannides. Former interior minister and Nicosia mayor Eleni Mavrou is among AKEL’s Kyrenia district candidates.
The AKEL leader said that current MPs Yiannos Lamaris and Stavros Evagorou will not run for re-election since they both completed two three-year terms. He added that they will continue to offer their services as members of AKEL’s political bureau and the central committee.
Nikos Katsourides is also not running for re-election as he has completed five terms, Kyprianou said, while “at their own choice”, Panicos Stavrianos and Pambos Papageorgiou are also standing down.
Kyprianou expressed his optimism that AKEL has what it takes to achieve good results in the May elections.
He said that it was no coincidence that since the DISY government was elected, late night political TV shows had been “abolished” and that the leaders of “the two main political parties have not met face to face (on TV) since the 2014 Euro-elections”.
“It is obvious that the ruling party does not want the confrontation of ideas and arguments and prefers exhaustive monologues, distortions and communication games,” Kyprianou said. He added that it was his party’s obligation to “reconstruct the distorted images presented to the people and present reality”.
As regards the Cyprus problem, Kyprianou said that even though some progress had been recorded, “the distance that separates us from the solution is still great and before us lay difficult and sensitive chapters”. AKEL’s goal was an “honest compromise with the Turkish Cypriot community” he said.
AKEL’s candidates list can be found here: http://www.akel.org.cy/2016/01/16/psifodeltia-akel-aristera-nees-dynameis/#.Vpo7sLZ97Gh
