Statement by AKEL Parliamentary Representative Giorgos Loukaides after the Conference of Heads and Representatives of Political Parties

 

 

7 September 2023

 

• Stop doing favours to fascist ELAM

• Parliament’s Rules of Procedure are being violated, making it easier for ELAM to promote racism

 

I am sure you have all seen the letter we have sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and which was put before the members of the Conference of Leaders and Party Representatives.

In the letter, we raise a number of issues, which have to do with the need for the House to respect its Rules and the Constitution. The discussion at the Conference of Leaders Meeting was held within this context.

We first raised the issue that there is no precedent for an ad hoc committee to be set up and for it to be turned de facto into a standing parliamentary committee of the House. We have set up special committees that have a permanent status, but ad hoc committees have also been set up in the past that had a specific framework of competence, specific terms, produced a specific result and, after a report was usually prepared, completed the responsibility they had assumed, as was the case with the issue of rising crime and the issue of Cyprus Airways. This is the first violation of the Rules of Procedure of the House concerning the establishment, by decision of the Committee of Selection, of the ad hoc committee on demography.

Unfortunately, at that time, and we pointed this out at today’s meeting, the mandate of this committee was not defined, with the result that this Committee repeatedly deals with the migration issue and attempts to identify the competent parliamentary committee that deals with immigration, which is the Committee on Internal Affairs. Even this week, you will have seen I imagine, fair criticisms that have been made by your fellow journalists, that both the supposed Committee on Demographics and the Internal Affairs Committee, essentially the same Ministers were invited and discussed more or less, not absolutely but more or less, the same issue. These are unacceptable things that also violate the Rules of Procedure of the House.

Unfortunately, as was predictable and as we had warned from the outset, this Committee on Demography has in practice become a Committee on the immigration issue. Two years ago, when this was decided with the agreement of the overwhelming majority of the other political parties, but also with the decision of the Committee of Selection, in which only the parties with a parliamentary group participate, we stressed that we had no obligation to give the chairmanship of the committee to all the parties that do not have a parliamentary group. We have reiterated this position today and stressed that only parties with a parliamentary group chair committees.

Of course, within the framework of consensus, committee chairmanships were also granted to parties that do not have a parliamentary group, and as AKEL we said that we are ready, in this parliamentary term too, to hand chairmanships to smaller parties. However, we said and emphasised that we have no obligation or need to do any favours to the fascist-nazi ELAM party, the branch of the ‘Golden Dawn’ party in Cyprus. Even more, we have no obligation to do any favours by giving the chairmanship of a committee, which was bound to turn it into a committee on immigration, so that it could exploit the chairmanship of that committee to spread the poison of fascism and racism in society in an even more effective way.

Unfortunately, we were not listened to and what we had warned about has been put into practice for the last two years and more. That is why we have raised once again the issue today, namely that we are under no obligation, especially after all the recent events, to continue to do ELAM a favour and grant it the chairmanship of a committee. It appears that we are not going to be listened to now either, and certain forces – again, the vast majority of the parliamentary parties – are choosing to continue to do ELAM a favour and hand it the chairmanship of a parliamentary committee.

But we have a development which may change the situation to some extent, and we hope that that’s what’s going to be the case. They appeared ready to discuss the prospect of ending the breach of the Rules of Procedure with regard to the mandate of the specific committee. That is, to end the practice of bringing the Ad Hoc Committee on Demographics under the competence of the Internal Affairs Committee.

I am not sure what the outcome will be in the Committee of Selection and I am even less sure, if this Committee remains as it is, chaired by the fascist-nazi ELAM, that it will not continue to violate the Rules of Procedure and enter into matters that clearly will no longer be, by decision of the Committee of Selection, within its own competence, but within the competence of the Internal Affairs Committee.