The Democratic Party (DIKO) was founded by Spyros Kyprianou, in 1976, under the name Democratic Front (DIPA). Kyprianou served as foreign minister in the Makarios government from August 1960 to June 1972, when he was fired at the behest of the Greek dictator Georges Papadopoulos. He returned to politics after the events of summer 1974, [...]
The case of EDEK is of particular interest for a variety of reasons, including its ideological orientations, its relations with forces outside Cyprus, the ideological composition of its leadership and its voters. Doctor Vassos Lyssarides, the personal physician of the Archbishop and President Makarios founded the party, which took its name with reference to the [...]
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 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 [...]
