Cyprus Greens enter parliament.

• Author: Cassola, Arnold
• Position: Brief Article

The Cyprus Greens have made it to the Cyprus Parliament for the first time! In the elections held on May 27, we obtained 1.93% of the votes.

The quorum necessary to enter parliament was 1.79%, so we now have one MP in a chamber of 56 MPs in Cyprus. The new Green MP is George Pertikes, who was a founding member of the Cyprus Greens, and has been an active member for many years.

Of course, the electoral system is a very favourable one in Cyprus. However, the result obtained is also a success for our Federation.

Three and a half years ago, in November 1997, when I first went on a fact finding mission to Cyprus in the name of the Federation, the Cyprus Greens had just under 1% of the votes. In the following EFGP Council meeting of spring 1998 the Cyprus Greens were admitted as full members of the Federation.

Since then, the Federation and the Green Group have invested a lot of political capital in Cyprus: the Federation had a Mediterranean Network meeting in Kykkos in 1999; we had our Council meeting in Larnaca in 2000 and we went to support the Cypriots in their election campaign last month.

The Green Group, have also offered their support. In 1999 they organized a meeting on the Cyprus issue in the European parliament and they were strongly present at the Federation meeting last...