{"id":45536,"date":"2021-05-31T07:25:31","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T07:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45536"},"modified":"2021-05-31T07:25:31","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T07:25:31","slug":"nationalists-make-significant-gains-in-cyprus-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45536","title":{"rendered":"Nationalists make significant gains in Cyprus vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The ruling conservatives emerge as winners but fail to get an absolute majority with voters turning to smaller parties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The far-right ELAM party and a centrist splinter group have made big gains in Cyprus\u2019 parliamentary election as a sizeable chunk of supporters appeared to have turned their back on the top three parties amid voter disenchantment with traditional power centres.<\/p>\n

With 100 percent of votes counted, ELAM on Sunday garnered 6.78 percent of the vote \u2013 a 3-percent increase from the previous election in 2016 \u2013 to edge out the socialist EDEK party by the razor-thin margin of about 200 votes.<\/p>\n

The centrist DIPA \u2013 made up of key figures from the centre-right DIKO party which has traditionally been the third-biggest party \u2013 gained 6.1 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

The centre-right DISY emerged in first place with 27.77 percent of the vote, 5.4 percent more than second-place, communist-rooted AKEL.<\/p>\n

But the parties respectively lost 2.9 percent and 3.3 percent of their support from the previous election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result isn\u2019t what we expected,\u201d AKEL General-Secretary Andros Kyprianou told a party rally. \u201cWe respect it and we\u2019ll examine it carefully to draw conclusions, but we can now say that we failed to convince (our supporters).\u201d<\/p>\n

President of the Democratic Rally (DISY) Averof Neofytou casting his ballot in the capital Nicosia [Christos Avraamides\/PIO\/AFP]<\/figure>\n

\u2018Very big failure\u2019<\/h2>\n

Analyst Christoforos Christoforou said the results indicate a \u201cvery big failure\u201d on the part of DISY and AKEL to rally more supporters by convincing them of the benefits of their policies.<\/p>\n

A last-ditch appeal by the DISY leadership limited a projected 5 percent voter loss to 3 percent.<\/p>\n

Christoforou said the real winners were ELAM with its strident anti-migration platform and hardline nationalist policies and DIPA whose top echelons still have connections to the centres of political power as former ministers and legislators.<\/p>\n

He said that the high electoral threshold of 3.6 percent means that 15,000 voters who cast ballots for smaller parties who did not win any seats are left without a voice in parliament.<\/p>\n

Opinion polls in the weeks preceding the vote indicated that DISY and AKEL would haemorrhage support as disappointed voters seek out alternatives among smaller parties.<\/p>\n

The election will not\u00a0affect the running of the government on the divided Mediterranean island nation, as executive power rests in the hands of the president, who is elected separately.<\/p>\n

About 65.73 percent of nearly 558,000 eligible voters cast ballots for the 56 Greek Cypriot seats in parliament. Voter turnout was 1 percent less than the previous poll.<\/p>\n

Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of AKEL casting his ballot [Andreas Andreou\/PIO\/AFP]<\/figure>\n

Among the key campaign issues were the country\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the hoped-for economic reboot as the country ramps up vaccinations.<\/p>\n

Migration has also been an issue as the Cypriot government insists it has exceeded its limits and can no longer receive more migrants.<\/p>\n

Smaller parties have appealed to voters to turn their backs on DISY, which they said is burdened by a legacy of corruption.<\/p>\n

An independent investigation into Cyprus\u2019 now-defunct investment-for-citizenship programme found that the government unlawfully granted passports to thousands of relatives of wealthy investors, some with shady pasts.<\/p>\n

An Al Jazeera investigation<\/a> found that several high-ranking Cypriot officials, politicians, lawyers and real estate developers were implicated in the scheme that allowed criminals to buy a European passport using the investment-for-citizenship programme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ruling conservatives emerge as winners but fail to get an absolute majority with voters turning to smaller parties.The far-right ELAM party and a centrist splinter group have made big gains in Cyprus\u2019 parliamentary election as a sizeable chunk of supporters appeared to have turned their back on the top three parties amid voter disenchantment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}