Political Parties – An overview
Party politics in Cyprus bear and are largely affected by birthmarks of the 1940s when first political life started. In spite of the many changes that Cyprus has undergone since then, the cleavage established in the 1940s between left and right commands to a great extent daily politics. The features of this cleavage are a consolidated [...]
AKEL – Progressive Party of the Working People
AKEL was founded in April 1941 by cadres of the outlawed Cyprus Communist Party [Κομμουνιστικό Κόμμα Κύπρου – KKK] and bourgeois notable figures. Cyprus was under British colonial rule and conditions at the time featured a political vacuum because of state of emergency measures imposed after a popular uprising in October 1931. The new party drew [...]
DISY – Democratic Rally
DISY was founded in 1976 by Glafcos Clerides and cadres from his former Unified Party of the Nationalist Front and the Progressive Front, which collapsed following support by some of their officials to the coup against Makarios in summer 1974. The party faced exclusion and systematic denigration from the day of its inception, as pro-Makarios forces [...]