DISY seeks ‘unholy alliance’ with AKEL

After exchanging barbs all week, the head of ruling DISY suggested his party and main opposition AKEL should each propose a candidate for the next House Speaker, elected by the votes of the two arch-rivals.

DISY leader Averof Neophytou told CyBC radio’s morning show on Friday the election of small, fringe parties “with no ideological foundations” would create chaos in the form of the Tower of Babel, and it is up to the two mainstream parties to elect the next president of parliament.

With a record of 651 candidates chasing 56 seats from 15 electoral lists, Neophytou sounded confident his party would retain the 18 seats it secured in the previous election. With communist AKEL’s 16 MPS, they would have a joint majority.

“We will put forward a candidate, they will put forward a candidate, and we will choose from among these two,” Neophytou said.

Asked if DISY talked to the fourth mainstream party, EDEK, about the House presidency after the socialists supported the incumbent administration’s Budget for 2021, Averof quipped, “are you joking?”

He quickly retorted, saying: “I am not joking either, but I assure you we have had no discussion whatsoever on this matter”.

Third-placed DIKO, a former coalition partner of both DISY and Akel administrations in the past, will struggle to retain its 10 seats, some of whom left last year to join the start-up Democratic Alignment, with nationalist ELAM expected to maintain or improve on its two seats, as with the Greens.

The ‘fringe’ parties Neophytou referred to were MEP Eleni Theocharous’ ‘Solidarity’ and former Citizen’s Alliance MP Anna Theologou’s new group, ‘Allagi Genias’. All of them need to pass the 3.6% threshold before securing any seat in the six districts.

Pending possible delays that Covid restrictions may cause, the first exit polls will be released just after 6 pm on Sunday, when the polls close.