Galanos offers himself as fall-back for Diko

FORMER House President Alexis Galanos yesterday put himself forward as a presidential candidate for his party, Diko, should Attorney-general Alecos Markides decline to stand.

Diko have promised Markides their support, but, with the Attorney-general still not having said whether he would stand, Galanos offered another option.

The former Diko vice-chairman said that if Markides decided not to run he would “offer” himself as an alternative to the “impossibilities” of Diko supporting either President Clerides or Akel-backed candidate George Iacovou.

Clerides has Disy’s support, but Diko have ruled out resurrecting their alliance with Disy to back the President. The possibility of backing former Foreign Minister George Iacovou has, however, not been ruled out by Diko.

Meanwhile, Akel leader Dimitris Christofias yesterday called a morning press conference to lambast Clerides’s government. He claimed the government had instructed the intelligence services (Kyp) to watch opposition politicians instead of criminals or enemy agents. He added that he had “indications” that the phones of opposition politicians had been bugged.

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.