In Light of the Suspended Constitutional Order
The House of Representatives elections held on 24 May 2026 showed that, although the traditional party order in the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus continues to exist, the parliamentary arithmetic has moved towards a more fragmented structure, more open to new actors and carrying a heightened potential for instability.
Official Results Table
| Party / Movement | Vote share and seats | Political position and core assessment |
| DISY – Democratic Rally | 27.1% / 17 seats | Centre-right, conservative-liberal and pro-EU. It maintained first place, but has moved away from being the sole decisive actor in the system. |
| AKEL – Progressive Party of Working People | 23.9% / 15 seats | Left-wing, rooted in the communist tradition, with an emphasis on labour and social policy; it maintained its position as the main opposition pole. |
| ELAM – National Popular Front | 10.9% / 8 seats | Nationalist right, anti-migration and hard-line towards the Turkish side on the Cyprus question. It substantially increased both its vote share and number of seats, rising to the position of third force. |
| DIKO – Democratic Party | 10.0% / 8 seats | A pragmatic coalition actor in the centre and nationalist-centre spectrum. It remained in parliament as a traditional centrist party, but its support base narrowed. |
| ALMA – Citizens for Cyprus | 5.8% / 4 seats | A new reformist movement that drew on institutional dissatisfaction through an emphasis on accountability and institutional reform. |
| Direct Democracy Movement | 5.4% / 4 seats | Positioned around digital participation, anti-establishment politics and influencer-based mobilisation. It entered parliament through the Fidias effect and Generation Z mobilisation. |
| EDEK, DIPA, Volt, Greens, etc. | Below threshold / 0 seats | These social democratic, centrist, liberal or ecologist parties remained outside parliament because they did not pass the 3.6% electoral threshold. |
The centre-right DISY maintained its first-place position, the left-wing AKEL continued to serve as one of the system’s main poles as the second-largest party, while ELAM transformed its rise on the nationalist right into the third-largest force in parliament. The entry of the newly established ALMA and the Direct Democracy Movement led by Fidias Panayiotou into parliament demonstrates that the contest for representation has moved beyond classical ideological cleavages and is being reshaped around demands for political renewal, institutional reform and accountability.
The Suspended Constitution, Electoral System and Turnout
The 1960 Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus is based on a bicommunal partnership model. Its underlying premise is the joint representation of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities in state institutions, together with the preservation of communal balance and reciprocal checks in certain areas. The provision that the President be Greek Cypriot and the Vice-President Turkish Cypriot, the communal allocation of seats in the legislature, and the logic of separate majorities or vetoes on certain matters constitute the legal expression of this partnership model.
Following the increase in the total number of seats to 80 in 1985, 56 seats in the House were allocated to the Greek Cypriot community and 24 seats to the Turkish Cypriot community. However, the 24 seats reserved for the Turkish Cypriot community have remained de facto vacant since the constitutional crisis of 1963-1964. The 1960 Constitution had designed the Republic of Cyprus as a bicommunal state founded on the partnership of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. By contrast, Enosis, meaning the aim of annexing the island to Greece, remained influential for a long period especially among Greek Cypriot nationalist circles and fuelled political tensions incompatible with the bicommunal constitutional order. In 1974, following the Greek-backed coup and developments directed towards Enosis, Türkiye carried out the Cyprus Peace Operation on the basis of its guarantor status. After this process, the island’s de facto division became entrenched, while the constitutional representation allocated to Turkish Cypriots continued to remain de facto suspended within the institutions of Southern Cyprus.
In the current de facto situation, because the seats reserved for the Turkish Cypriot community remain vacant, elections to the House of Representatives are held only for the 56 seats allocated to the Greek Cypriot community. Members of parliament are elected for a five-year term under an open-list proportional representation system applied in six multi-member electoral districts. This system allows voters both to choose a political party and to express preferences among candidates on party lists.
In the 2026 elections, there were 569,182 registered voters; 380,851 people cast ballots and turnout was recorded at 66.91%. The number of valid votes was 372,063, invalid votes 6,618, and blank votes 2,170. Although turnout increased compared with the 2021 elections, this increase cannot be read as a return of trust in the traditional parties. On the contrary, a significant part of the higher turnout appears to have been channelled into new movements and protest-oriented political choices.
This arithmetic shows that no single party was able to secure the absolute majority of 29 seats in the de facto 56-seat parliament. Legislative processes are therefore becoming more dependent on issue-based bargaining, temporary alliances and institutional coordination between the President and the House. The strengthening of centre-right and nationalist-right actors has also changed the bargaining dynamics in the legislative arena. The incumbent President, Nikos Christodoulides, has roots in DISY, but ran as an independent candidate in the 2023 presidential election and was elected with the support of centrist and centre-right parties.
The Cyprus Question: Influential, Yet at the Periphery of the Agenda
The Cyprus question continues to determine the historical and constitutional background of Greek Cypriot politics. Nevertheless, in the 2026 parliamentary elections, the main axis shaping voter behaviour was not, in the classical sense, comprehensive settlement negotiations or the debate over a federal settlement model. The campaign was more visibly shaped by the cost of living, housing, energy costs, institutional trust, migration and reactions to a party system perceived as ineffective.
This does not mean that the Cyprus question has lost its significance. On the contrary, it continues to exist as the founding ground of the political system; however, in day-to-day electoral competition it becomes visible not directly around a settlement vision, but rather through indirect issues such as migration, security, crossing points, intercommunal contact and relations with Türkiye. ELAM’s hard line on closing crossing points and anti-migration politics is the clearest example of this indirect visibility.
For the mainstream parties, the Cyprus question has become an issue on which traditional positions are repeated, but which no longer carries the election campaign. This produces two consequences. First, although the founding constitutional question remains a permanent part of society’s political agenda, it is not at the centre of electoral mobilisation. Second, as the settlement debate weakens, the issue is increasingly discussed through the lenses of identity, migration and security.
YouTube, TikTok and Digital Politics
YouTuber and TikTok content creator Fidias Panayiotou transformed the visibility he gained independently of classical party structures in the 2024 European Parliament elections into an organised political platform in 2026 under the name Direct Democracy Movement.
One of the most striking aspects of the movement is its emphasis on direct voter participation in decision-making processes through digital tools. Panayiotou has stated that, in his political decisions, he will take into account the majority tendency emerging from polls conducted through the smartphone application he developed and through his social media accounts. Although such digital poll results do not create a legally binding obligation, there is, in principle, no obstacle to a member of parliament exercising political discretion in this manner. Nevertheless, this model entails serious legal and institutional risks in areas such as manipulation, identity verification, fairness of representation, data security, protection of personal data and algorithmic steering.
While parties such as Volt, which possess an organisational history and institutional infrastructure at the European Union level, remained below the electoral threshold, the Direct Democracy Movement won approximately 5.4% of the vote and four seats in its first parliamentary election. This suggests that a significant segment of younger voters acted not primarily on the basis of classical ideological programmes, but in response to expectations of accessibility, transparency and digital participation in decision-making processes. The Generation Z effect therefore cannot be explained solely as an age category; the decisive factor is the transformation in the form of political communication. Short video formats, app-based polls, instant feedback mechanisms, personal-brand politics and a performative mode of participation distant from traditional political language are the main elements of this transformation.
In this context, the ability of social media figures to generate parliamentary representation shows that, in the digital age, channels of political participation and representation have diversified and now feed directly into legislative activity.
Cyprus’s Political-Legal Structure
- Form of Government: The 1960 Constitution established the Republic of Cyprus as a bicommunal partnership state based on a presidential system.
- Executive: The President is the head of state and the centre of the executive; the Council of Ministers is appointed by the President and does not require a parliamentary vote of confidence.
- Legislature: Legislative power is vested in the House of Representatives; constitutionally, the House is based on a model of representation allocated between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.
- Constitutional Partnership: The design of state institutions provides for institutional balance, separate representation and reciprocal checks between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.
- Suspended Representation: Since the 1963-1964 crisis, the representation allocated to the Turkish Cypriot community has not been used in practice; the House operates only through the seats allocated to the Greek Cypriot community.
References
https://www.gov.cy/en/internal-affairs/parliamentary-elections-2026-statement-by-the-chief-returning-officer-of-the-republic-of-cyprus-dr-elikkos-a-elia-on-the-final-voter-turnout/
https://www.gov.cy/en/internal-affairs/parliamentary-elections-2026-statement-by-the-chief-returning-officer-of-the-republic-of-cyprus-dr-elikkos-a-elia-on-the-final-results/
https://data.ipu.org/parliament/CY/CY-LC01/
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Prepared by: Ahmet Deveci
Date Prepared: 04.06.2026
OYBİRLİĞİ ASSOCIATION
International Studies Unit