Almost three weeks after their announced intention to meet, the leaders of AKEL and DIKO are expected to have their first official meeting on Tuesday regarding the efforts of the two parties to seek a contact line for cooperation in the presidential elections. All the previous time, despite the loss of useful time for dialogue, the parties were given the opportunity to re-evaluate their positions, to carefully consider their position and to rationalize the data in front of them. It should be noted, of course, that in the absence of dialogue, some external factors may have influenced the process and, in particular, the creation of pressure from both sides in order to create a more efficient rapprochement between the positions of the two parties.
The internal party discussions within the two parties, according to information from “P”, lead to the conclusion that from the beginning the two sides will seek to immediately clarify the prevailing scenarios in relation mainly to the nomenclature. The information coming from AKEL on the way in which the party will deal with the dialogue with DIKO leads to key conclusions which actually codify the course of the consultations: They are expected to send the message that if party leaders are not excluded during during the debate, then there will be a stalemate.
Here, of course, it must be clarified whether Nikolas Papadopoulos himself is ready to insist until the end on his own candidacy, which will mean de facto and the end of any effort to find the two parties. However, according to information from “P”, despite the fact that the scenario that prevails in AKEL is the rejection of the candidacy of the president of DIKO, however, a move by three provincial secretaries of the party, Nicosia, Limassol and Paphos, caused embarrassment at the Politburo. With the focus on the discussions in the body, it was raised, in a kind of reflection, such as the party not to reject “immediately the candidacy of the president of DIKO, from the moment when the main goal is the cooperation with the Center”. This approach of members of the Politburo does not seem to convince the majority to abandon the general direction in the consultations, ie the search for a common candidate with DIKO or other forces, something that directly excludes and puts out of the agenda candidacies of the leaders. p>
They will listen, but…
AKEL realizes that the internal party discussions will intensify as the discussions with DIKO increase. As a member of the party's Politburo noted in “P”, “our intention is to reach the deep because we want to exhaust all the margins for cooperation”. This certainly does not imply that they intend to let time run for long, with the aim of beginning to shape either the joint debates or the party decisions. Despite the vertical stance with which AKEL will appear in the dialogue with DIKO, regarding the usefulness of excluding party leaders, they nevertheless send the message that
• They are ready to listen to proposals from DIKO, regardless of those that AKEL will put in the dialogue.
This, as “P” understands, is a reference point for approaching DIKO, while it shows the willingness to be nominated without excluding third party candidates.
For his part, Nikolas Papadopoulos:
• He will seek from the beginning to outline, as he did in public, the basic characteristics of a candidacy that the party wants and based on the decisions of the recent DIKO congress.
• He will note that the party believes that , despite the differences that exist in the Cyprus issue with AKEL, the chances of finding them are high, and that they should be guided by the practices of cooperation of the two parties in the past which (collaborations) gave Presidents of the Republic.
In DIKO, and especially the president of the party himself, he has his own perception of the difficulties of promoting his own candidacy. At the same time, a group of executives estimate that the party will face serious difficulties in the near future, because, “apart from its own candidacy, but as a result of cooperation with AKEL, it is not comfortable with any other scenario.” This assessment, as expressed by a group of executives at DIKO, remains to be seen in practice and whether it will be decisive in the search with AKEL for another candidacy from names that the two parties will put on the table in their in-depth consultations.
