DISY make no decision on House Speaker

Ruling DISY will reconvene on Thursday to decide on what course to follow regarding the election of House Speaker, its spokesman said on Tuesday, stressing that the party was not prepared to engage in horse trading ahead of the vote.

The matter was discussed by the party’s political bureau on Tuesday but no decision was taken about who to back, the members opting to wait for possible developments ahead of Thursday’s vote.

So far four political leaders have announced their candidacies, main opposition AKEL’s Andros Kyprianou, EDEK’s Marinos Sizopoulos, Solidarity Movement’s Demetris Syllouris, and Giorgos Perdikis of the Green party.

No one party has the 29-seat majority necessary and alliances have to be forged for anyone to win the second-highest state position.

DIKO has already backed Sizopoulos but DISY and AKEL do not view backing the leader of a party with just three seats positively.

DISY had proposed to AKEL they split the term of the House Speaker between the two parties – a practice followed by the two biggest groupings of the European Parliament – the European People’s Party and the Socialist Party.

But AKEL rejected the proposal and announced Kyprianou as candidate.

DISY spokesman Prodromos Prodromou said the party believed in achieving consensus but it was not prepared to engage in horse trading.

“There must be dialogue but we rule out political tradeoffs,” he said.

He said there was strong will within the party to contest the election with leader Averof Neophytou but DISY was open for dialogue based on political proposals that include the main issues of the economy and the Cyprus problem.

Meanwhile, it was announced on Tuesday that an informal meeting of party chiefs will take place at noon on Wednesday to discuss the election.

The meeting was requested by Citizens Alliance chairman Giorgos Lillikas. It aims at agreeing on a procedure so that everything goes smoothly on Thursday, a statement said.

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