The EPP can and must grow, become stronger, embrace people and be embraced by the world, increase its percentages and take the position it deserves in society, because society and our country need it, Party President Marinos Sizopoulos said at the 14th Pancyprian Congress of the party.
Mr. Sizopoulos was re-elected President without an unopposed candidate.
"The common confession of everyone that we are the party with the most correct positions, the most honest, that we are a fighting party, should be transformed into practical support from the people," he said.
He added that this would be achieved "if we abandon the introversion that some people are deliberately trying to cause, since they themselves have failed to realise their personal ambitions". He added that it is no coincidence that most of them have capitalised on significant gains at the expense of the Party and its members. They seek, he said, to make the EPP a closed club and not an epiphany of social and national struggles.
"It is the responsibility of all of us to prove that we are ready, together with the younger people, to march for a better society with a strong EPP. An EDEK that will not remain in opposition. An EDEK that will change its position and role. Because this is for the benefit of our country as well," he noted
We must prove, he added, and convince that we are a leading part of society, that despite 53 years of heavy history, we are not an establishment, that we are a party, which, when a citizen joins, will be satisfied not only by our positions, but also by our way of functioning.
He said that the Movement has a duty in the coming years to further modernise its structures and the way it operates. Also the collective organs, central and provincial, should be the bodies that listen to the Party's base and society.
[/P]"To strengthen electronic participatory democracy by using technology. Harness the expertise and especially the innovative knowledge and suggestions of young people. To prepare the next generation of EDEKites, who will continue the struggles, with modern means and new ideas, but with strong ideological and national foundations."
Also to increase joint actions with the party's mass organizations the Socialist Women's Movement, the New Agrarian Movement and the IOC."
To increase joint actions with the party's mass organizations the Socialist Women's Movement, the New Agrarian Movement and the IOC.
The EDEK, he also said, should not only be the voice of the people's conscience, should not only be the bulwark against bad, social or national policies, should not only be in a hurry to correct, as much as it can, the bad texts and to graft other people's policies with beneficial proposals for the people.
"The EDEK must implement its own policies, implement its own proposals, exercise governance."
"The EDEK must implement its own policies, implement its own proposals, exercise governance. It is imperative, for the good of the country and the people, for the EPP to play a leading role, not only at the level I mentioned above, but also in the everyday life of the citizens," he said. Sizopoulos said that the convening of the Pancyprian Congress emerged as an urgent necessity, following the unacceptable behaviour of some party cadres and members of the party, the greater number of whom in recent years have not only been distanced but during the last parliamentary elections fought against the EDEK. They were, he said, calling on members and voters not to vote for the EDEK, to reduce its numbers, to blame the failure on the current leadership, to call for its resignation so that they would supposedly "come back" to take over. He added that they urged party cadres and members to run as candidates with other parties.
"On the altar of personal interests they sacrifice the party and, by extension, our country. All those who were favoured because of the Party where are they today? If it were not for the EPP, what would be their course and what would be their visibility," he asked.
Regarding internal party procedures and institutional changes, he said that the main objective is to overcome inherent weaknesses, but also to further strengthen both transparency and the possibility of objective control of specific activities for which explanations were often asked for in the past without any answers being given.
With regard to internal party procedures and institutional changes, he said that the main objective is to overcome inherent weaknesses, but also to further strengthen both transparency and the possibility of objective control of specific activities for which explanations were often asked for in the past without any answers being given.
Regarding the party's finances, he said that in January 2020 all the party's debts were paid off and today, for the first time at least in the last 20 years, it has a positive financial balance.
He also said that the EPP was the only one of the historical parties that managed to increase its votes, even by 0.54%, i.e. 2292 votes more than in 2016. It elected an MP in Larnaca for the first time since 1970.
"The success of all our goals would be possible if at the Pancyprian level the party would still collect about 1250 votes. It would have been the 4th Parliamentary Party, would have elected 6 MPs and would have been the decisive regulatory factor in the Parliament," he said.
He added that the loss of the 4th seat in the Parliament is the clear responsibility of those party members and executives who not only did not contribute to the election campaign, but instead fought the party and supported candidates in other combinations.
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