DESPITE its strong showing in Sunday’s Euro elections, the Coalition for Europe — the political grouping comprised of DISY dissidents — yesterday kept their cards close to their chests about whether they would evolve into a fully-fledged party.
Formed just weeks after the April referenda, the coalition is led by former DISY chairman Yiannakis Matsis and expelled deputies Rikkos Erotokritou and Prodromos Prodromou. All three advocated rejection of the Annan plan, in opposition to the official DISY party line.
Exit polls on referendum day showed around two-thirds of DISY supporters also said “no” to the UN plan; and this in turn served to deepen the rift between the party leadership and the dissenters, who now claimed to represent the broad majority of DISY sympathizers. But during the Euro elections campaign things got nasty, with Prodromou and Erotokritou accusing party boss Anastassiades of ruling with an iron fist and using underhand tactics.
On Sunday, the coalition secured one seat in the European parliament, snatching the slot away from socialists EDEK in a thriller that was decided by just 37 votes. Overall, the coalition obtained 10.80 per cent of the votes cast, with Matsis the winning candidate.
But in the midst of DISY’s jubilation over their own impressive results, Matsis (who insists he wants to bring unity back to the party) withheld comment on the coalition’s future; right after the election results came out on Sunday night, he said he would be making “some very important announcements… in due course,” but did not elaborate.
“We’ll talk again once the celebrations (in DISY) die down,” he offered.
Others were not so cagey; deputy Christodoulous Taramoundas said of the coalition that “this party clearly has prospects”. The use of the term “party” was significant, as during the election campaign the coalition had to fight for its status as a political movement.
And yesterday Prodromou told the Cyprus Mail that the coalition had secured a “major success” in the elections and that its members had every incentive to “build on this”. But he stopped short of saying whether the grouping would develop into a structured party, noting that “for us, nomenclature isn’t too important”.
Meanwhile press reports in recent days suggested that the coalition would like to sit in on the National Council; but under the law, only registered parties are allowed to participate in that body.
Asked to comment, Prodromou said that perhaps a workaround could enable the coalition to take part in the National Council. “After all, we do have four deputies in the House here in Cyprus, and now an MEP, not to mention sizeable support from the electorate.”
The debarred DISY deputy went on to say he was “not ruling out anything,” hinting that the coalition might consider co-operation with other parties.
“But there’s no possibility of détente with DISY, not as long as the party maintains its current policy on the Cyprus problem,” added Prodromou.
Analysis of the election results indicated that “leakage” from DISY to the coalition was considerably less than anticipated. The group led by Matsis did draw most of its support from the DISY support base, but a substantial percentage of their votes came from the smaller parties, all of which took a battering.
