Parties clash over committee chairs as Alma threatens Supreme Court challenge

Politics parliamentTop News Parties clash over committee chairs as Alma threatens Supreme Court challenge Parties Clash Over Committee Chairs As Alma Threatens Supreme Court Challenge Relevant News Parties clash over committee chairs as Alma threatens Supreme Court challenge 10 June 2026 Somali referee denied US entry as World Cup fans face visa chaos and sky-high ticket prices 10 June 2026 Gunmen kill 12 in attack on Johannesburg settlement, police launch manhunt 10 June 2026 Andreas Bimbishis 10 June 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber Cyprus’s political parties are heading for a clash over the distribution of parliamentary committee chairmanships, with the dispute potentially ending up before the Supreme Court if Alma is denied a chair it claims it is entitled to. Party leaders and representatives held their first meeting at parliament on Tuesday, and the signals were far from encouraging for an easy agreement. The one area of consensus was the number of committees: all parties appear to agree that the House will retain 16 standing committees in the new parliamentary term rather than reducing to 14, as ELAM had initially proposed. The Environment and Human Rights committees will remain separate, as will Agriculture and Legal Affairs. Parties also agreed to increase committee membership from 11 to 12 MPs to allow all parties representation. Each MP may sit on up to four committees. The arithmetic — and where it breaks down With 16 committees and under the House’s existing rules, the distribution formula would be 5-5-3-3: five chairmanships each for DISY and AKEL, three each for ELAM and DIKO. The straightforward solution would have been for parties to retain the chairmanships they held last term, with any “orphaned” committees — those whose previous chair’s party is no longer represented or eligible — going to ELAM, which held no chairmanships last term. That option appears to have been set aside. The difficulty begins with ELAM’s demands. The party wants the Defence, Education and Environment committees. AKEL is reported to be pushing back, particularly on Environment — a committee AKEL previously held and “gifted” to the Ecologists last term, whose departure from parliament has left it without a chair. AKEL’s manoeuvre AKEL also appears unenthusiastic about retaining the Human Rights committee, according to information available to Phileleftheros. This has raised the possibility of the party passing it to Alma and Irene Charalambides, who chaired the Human Rights committee last term until she was removed from AKEL’s parliamentary group. If AKEL reclaims Environment, it could remain at five chairmanships while freeing up Human Rights for another party. The question is which other party would be willing to accept one fewer chairmanship than it claims — and at present, none appears ready to do so. Alma’s court threat Under current House rules, committee chairmanships are allocated only to parties with at least seven MPs — meaning DISY, AKEL, ELAM and DIKO. Alma rejects this position. Irene Charalambides arrived at Tuesday’s meeting carrying a 17-page legal opinion arguing that Alma is entitled to a chairmanship. If the party’s claim is not met in the final distribution, the matter could go before the Supreme Court. A difficult week of negotiations lies ahead, with talks expected to resume on Thursday afternoon. Selection Committee agreed The composition of the Selection Committee was agreed at Tuesday’s meeting. It will be put to a full plenary vote on Thursday, before which a further party leaders’ meeting will take place. The newly elected Selection Committee will then convene immediately after the plenary to begin work on the composition and chairmanships of the standing committees. According to information available to Phileleftheros, the Selection Committee will comprise three DISY MPs — Savia Orfanidou, Demetris Demetriou and Giorgos Karoullas — and three AKEL MPs — Stefanos Stefanou, Giorgos Loukaides and Aristos Damianou. DIKO will be represented by one MP, most likely Panikos Leonidou, and ELAM by either Sotiris Ioannou or Linos Papagiannis. House Speaker Annita Demetriou will sit on the committee ex officio. Tuesday’s meeting, chaired by Demetriou, was attended by DISY parliamentary spokesman Demetris Demetriou; AKEL parliamentary spokesman Giorgos Loukaidis and MP Aristos Damianou; ELAM MPs Linos Papagiannis and Sotiris Ioannou; DIKO president Nikolas Papadopoulos and parliamentary spokesman Panikos Leonidou; Alma’s Irene Charalambides; and Direct Democracy deputy president Diana Constantinides. 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