Nicosia, Cyprus. Cyprus election officials said the May 24 parliamentary election results could trigger additional elections if certain independents or local leaders secure seats in the House and must relinquish other posts.
Potential impact of Fidias Panayiotou’s election
Chief returning officer Menelaos Vasiliou said that if Fidias Panayiotou is elected MP, he would have to either keep the House seat and give up his MEP status, or remain an MEP and have the runner-up in his party take the House seat.
Vasiliou said that if Panayiotou chose to keep his MEP seat, he would have a fortnight to announce his decision, and the House seat would go to the runner-up in his party with no further elections.
However, Vasiliou said that if Panayiotou chose to give up his MEP seat to join the House, elections would have to be held for his European Parliament seat because he ran as an independent candidate and therefore there was no runner-up.
Similar cases involving mayors and community leaders
Vasiliou said the same applies for some mayors or community leaders elected to their post without being members of a political formation and who also had no runner-up. In these scenarios, he said, elections would have to be held.
Timeframe and legislative amendment
Vasiliou said elections would have to be held within 60 days.
He added that the interior ministry had requested an amendment to legislation so that the seat would go to the next in line, which would save the state up to €6 million, but this was not moved forward due to reservations expressed by parliament that decisions could not be taken in retrospect for elections already held.
After the amendment was dismissed, the election service requested at least 60 days to organise new elections instead of 45, which was passed by the plenum on the premise that 45 days would mean holding elections in the middle of summer given high temperatures and the holiday season.
Vasiliou said the 60-day timeframe could be extended to up to 120 days, placing any extra elections in the second fortnight of September.
How do you think potential additional elections could affect the outcome of the May 24 parliamentary vote?
