Cypriot far right gains ground in parliamentary election

Cypriots voted in a parliamentary election on Sunday that saw the far right make significant gains while two new political movements entered the legislature, reshaping the island’s political landscape ahead of the 2028 presidential election. More than half a million registered voters elected 56 lawmakers from a record field of 752 candidates.

The center right Democratic Rally, or DISY, secured first place with 27.2 percent of the vote, winning 17 seats. The left wing AKEL finished second with 23.8 percent and 15 seats. The far right National Popular Front, ELAM, surged to third place with about 11 percent of the vote, doubling its parliamentary representation from four seats to eight. ELAM, an offshoot of Greece’s banned Golden Dawn party, campaigned against migration and took a hard line on negotiations with Turkish Cypriots, advocating the closure of checkpoints across the United Nations controlled buffer zone.

The centrist Democratic Party, DIKO, finished fourth with 10 percent of the vote and eight seats. Two new parties entered parliament for the first time. ALMA, a movement campaigning on accountability and anticorruption, secured about 5.8 percent of the vote and four...