Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

Greek Cypriot political parties, by and large, reflect the opinions, values and prejudices of different shades the political mainstream, and their positions on the Cyprus problem manifest in various ways and degrees aspects of both Hellenocentrist and Cyprocentrist tendencies. However, some parties tend to put their emphasis on the Hellenic character of Greek Cypriot culture and its close links with the cultural traditions of Greece and play down the indigenous Cyprus-based features of Greek Cypriot life and thought, and conversely other parties tend to emphasise the Cypriotness of Greek Cypriots at the expense of their Hellenic traditions. It is possible to order the parties along a Hellenocentricity-Cyprocentricity continuum, but it should be born in mind that an exercise of this kind is bound, by the very nature of the case, to be rough and approximate. The following list of seven parties begins with the party with the strongest Hellenocentric and weakest Cyprocentrist tendencies and ends with the party with the strongest Cyprocentrist and the weakest Hellenocentrist tendencies. Each party is listed under an English translation of its full name and/or its Greek acronym, together with the name of its leader or leaders and the popular support it may be assumed to enjoy among Greek Cypriots, estimated very roughly on the basis of its performances in the parliamentary elections of May 1996, the presidential elections of February 1998 and current trends in Greek Cypriot public opinion.


New Horizons (NE.O), President: Mr Nicos Koutsou, 1%
Democratic Party (DEKO), President: Mr Spyros Kyprianou; Parliamentary Spokesman: Mr Tassos Papadopoulos, 12%
Euro-Democratic Renewal Party (KEA), a splinter group which broke out of DEKO - but still ideologically akin to it - led by Mr Alexis Galanos, 4%
EDEK Socialist Party, President: Dr Vassos Lyssarides; Deputy President: Takis Hadjidemetriou, 10%
Democratic Rally (DESY), President: Mr Nicos Anastasiades; Deputy President: Mr Panayiotis Demetriou,10 35%
United Democrats (E.DE), President: Mr George Vassiliou; Deputy President: Mr Michael Papapetrou, 3%
AKEL, General Secretary: Mr Demetris Christofias, 35%11



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What-centric are the remaining GCs?



http://website.lineone.net/~acgta/Stavrinides.doc


Zenon Stavrinides is a great man! Zenon... his name says it all...

[Piratis]

Insan, if you can get a hold of videos of some rallies organized by those parties in the past get them, it might open your eyes.

Count the Greek flags VS Cyprus flags in those rallies, and you will see that DESY should be in position 1 of this chart, unlike what this guy suggests.

[insan]

Insan, if you can get a hold of videos of some rallies organized by those parties in the past get them, it might open your eyes.

Count the Greek flags VS Cyprus flags in those rallies, and you will see that DESY should be in position 1 of this chart, unlike what this guy suggests.

Piratis, I've seen one of Anastasiades rallies on TV and really what you've said is true. At least %80 of the flags the participants wawing were Greek flags. Actually I would state it in my post but I thought it would be better to wait to hear some others opinions about it.

Though, nevertheless; Zenon is still one of my most credible man concerning the Cyprus problem and related issues. I should observe one of the Diko's rallies in order to compare and get a fairer judgement. The first two in Zenon's list are well known and Akel also. The question is who is in the third place? Desi or Diko?

[Piratis]

Now we have new parties also but if I was going to put the parties in your list in order I would do it like this:

DESY
NE.O
DIKO
KEA
EDEK
E.DE
AKEL

I am not sure between DESY and NE.O.
NE.O is a tiny party, it might be first above DESY but it wouldn't really matter.
The same is the case between AKEL and E.DE. Now E.DE are mostly made by the members of the former ADISOK, a party that broke out of AKEL.

[Saint Jimmy]

It's true that you get a zillion of Greek flags at DESI rallies, and no Cyprus flags, and vice-versa for AKEL rallies, but this is misleading and is not an indicator of Hellenocentrism, or lack thereof.

This greek flag-cypriot flag thing is just another manifestation of the classic AKEL-DESI opposing root philosophies that caused the clash in the first place. By and large, the number of flags (or the kind of flags, for that matter) at a party rally means nothing anymore, for these two parties (although, yes, remnants of DESI's hellenocentric past are still to be found, personified by some of its older members, but their vast majority has no voice and is not seriously even considered within the party).

In my opinion, today Zenon's list is fairly accurate.

(it's against all odds, but I remain hopeful that one day I will agree with Piratis on something - anything! )