Election losers pragmatic in the face of defeat

 

THE FOUR newcomer parties did not manage to get in parliament having only garnered a meagre 2.13 per cent between them.

The Cyprus Progressive Cooperation, KYPROS, were the biggest losers managing to harness 709 votes or 0.18 per cent of total. KYPROS president Thekla Petridou said they were “unpleasantly surprised” by the result but would continue their political action.

The Independent Citizens Movement, ZYGOS, did slightly better with 0.21 per cent or 858 votes.  ZYGOS leader John Cannas told the Mail that their aim had never been just to be voted into parliament but act as a group against corruption.

The Citizen’s Rights Bureau of the Popular Socialist Movement, LASOK, did better with a total of 2,668 votes or 0.66 per cent.

LASOK’s president, Lakis Ioannou, had expressed his conviction on the day of voting that LASOK would be participating in the new parliament.

The ultra right-wing National Popular Front, ELAM, did significantly better – securing more votes than all three other newcomers in total – with 4,350 votes or 1.08 per cent.

Their percentage was not too far off from the minimum requirement for securing a seat in parliament set at 1.8 per cent of total votes.

ELAM issued a statement saying it “will not disappoint all those who fought for it.”

Six independent candidates got a total of 588 votes,  sharing 0.14 per cent of the total.

Maverick politician Costas Kyriacou, better known as ‘Outopos’, got the highest number of votes from all independent candidates which at 0.06 per cent was not enough to secure him a seat.

‘Outopos’ ran in two presidential elections as well as in the last European parliament elections claiming that the vote was rigged each time.

Exactly 418,181 people voted out of the 531,463 registered with abstention reaching a record high of 21.3 per cent.

 

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.