Party president Averof Neophytou is currently the only confident that he will express interest in the highest state office. The intentions of any other member remain unknown. Without ruling out anything, rather surprising will be the submission of another candidate to take on the party leader. The highlight of the background is none other than the final moves of Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides, who has not denied that he is interested in "running" in the elections as an independent candidate and reserves the right to decide at a later stage what he will do. However, after January 10, party time will count down until March, when DISY will confirm the candidate with whom it will do battle in 2023.
Presidential intervention
The possibility of Nicos Christodoulides submitting a candidacy on Monday should be considered unlikely. In recent days there has been an initiative underway for the minister to make it clear that he will not run for president against his party. The initiative is also shared by the President of the Republic, who favours closing this issue as soon as possible. President Anastasiades reportedly agrees with Nikos Christodoulides' position that the activation of DISY's procedures for selecting the candidate will officially mark the beginning of the election campaign and put the government on the defensive. On the other hand, however, the President is under pressure from Pindarou in order for the minister to clarify his intentions. In the next few days there will be developments in one direction or the other, since one option is for the minister to resign to make things easier for the President and the other is for him to step down. Also on the table remains the option of keeping the situation as it is, at least until March 12, the date on which the Supreme Council meeting is set to elect the candidate with whom DISY will contest the highest state office. According to the party's constitution, the Supreme Council nominates by election the party's candidate and may refer the result for ratification to a nationwide convention. The Political Bureau will meet on Tuesday, January 11, 2022 to review the validity of the applications of interest and subsequently submit them to the Supreme Council for its March 12, 2022 meeting.
DIKO a victim of covid
Developments are also running at DIKO but the deteriorating epidemiological situation is causing many practical problems at the party's political congress scheduled for this month. DIKO president Nicolas Papadopoulos, who spent the holidays at home due to covid, is expected to be released and return to active duty. DIKO makes it clear, however, that the political congress should not be directly linked to the party's decisions on the presidential election. The constraints caused by the pandemic measures affect the congress, which will either be postponed or arrangements will be made to hold it, possibly remotely. This issue is expected to be taken up by the party's leadership team next week. In essence, DIKO prefers the candidacy of Nicolas Papadopoulos and will start negotiations with the other parties with this proposal. The beginning will be with the opposition parties. A meeting between Nicolas Papadopoulos and AKEL general secretary Stefanos Stefanou remains pending, which was postponed due to the adventure caused by the crown virus to the president of DIKO.
In AKEL, some initial discussions took place and the floor was transferred to the members of the party's grassroots groups. The ideal scenario for AKEL is cooperation with the other opposition parties (except ELAM) with a common candidate from the first round. For the moment, everything remains open since the discussion of names has not gone into depth, only some first hints have been made. For the major opposition party, as Stefanos Stefanou has made clear many times, the priority is to agree on the political framework of a possible cooperation and on the basis of this, discussions on the name of the candidate will begin.
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