VETERAN KISOS deputy Doros Theodorou yesterday warned that if the socialist party’s supporters did not elect Takis Hadjidemetriou as their next leader the party would probably get even smaller.
Theodorou charged that the communist party AKEL was using the crisis in KISOS to poach some of its centre-leftist faithful.
The party’s electoral conference on July 22 will elect a successor to KISOS leader Dr Vassos Lyssarides, who announced he would not stand again after KISOS took a hammering at the parliamentary elections in May.
The conference will signal the official end of 82-year-old Lyssarides’ three-decade stint as party leader and aims to help the party regroup.
The leadership race will be between front-runners Takis Hadjidemetriou and Yiannakis Omirou, a former Defence Minister.
“I strongly believe that AKEL wants KISOS to cease being a centre-left party. AKEL is trying to monopolise the centre left ideology and it is succeeding, partly because of our own choices and mistakes,” Theodorou admitted.
“I know for sure that AKEL approached many of our centre-leftist people, trying to convince them to vote for it in the May 27 elections. And it succeeded.
“AKEL would hate to see Hadjidemetriou taking over,” the deputy argued.
Hadjidemetriou is thought to be more left-wing than Omirou.
Theodorou believes that right-wing DISY is also pushing KISOS to become more right- wing “because it desperately needs an ally for the Presidential elections in 2003”.
“In this critical and historic moment, Hadjidemetriou should be the next chairman of the party to fight those forces which want us to loose our socialist face. This is the only way to keep our current supporters and win back our former voters,” Theodorou said.
Hadjidemetriou said he would stay on for three years at the party’s helm if chosen.
But some KISOS members think 67-year-old Hadjidemetriou would fail to renew the party and would prefer Omirou, who is ten years younger.
KISOS, which won five House of Representatives seats as EDEK in the 1996 elections, secured only four seats in the new parliament. The party garnered just 6.5 per cent of the vote on May 27, 1.6 per cent down from 1996.
KISOS’ poor showing is generally put down to two things: the decision to change its name from EDEK when it unsuccessfully attempted to merge with two smaller groupings last year, and Lyssarides’ decision to go into government with DISY after the 1998 presidential elections.
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