Former EDEK figures Costis Efstathiou and Demetris Papadakis will attend the party’s statutory congress on Sunday, along with all or most of its expelled members. Meanwhile, 11 members of the party’s political bureau have questioned her running of the body in a letter to party president Sofia Makri.
The congress is the first step in the new interim leadership’s effort to open a new chapter for the party. The second is an electoral congress scheduled for December.
EDEK, which has lost its share of state funding since dropping out of parliament, recently made staff redundant, mainly because of its tight finances. Party sources describe its financial situation as worse than dire. Makri has drawn up a new organisational chart that cuts staff from 19 to 11 in a first phase. The post of general director remains unresolved, and its abolition is expected to be raised at the congress because of its cost.
The letter
In their letter, the signatories say they have not received the minutes of the political bureau’s meetings and that the agenda is not sent out in time, leaving members no time to propose additional items. On one occasion, they say, a member’s proposal to add items to the agenda was ignored.
They also object to the presence at meetings of advisers to the president who are not members of the body and so were not entitled to attend. The letter alleges that some of them disrupted a meeting, spoke out of turn and clashed with bureau members.
The signatories say the political bureau was bypassed on the staff redundancies, which they say were made without prior discussion or approval. They call on Makri to take immediate corrective action to restore institutional order.
They also ask for answers on reports about economist Tasos Yiasemides and on a proposal to AKEL for cooperation.
In addition, they want a briefing on meetings with ministers and the proposals submitted at them, including whether these match those approved by the party’s pancyprian conference. They also question the use of the term ‘reunification’ in a party statement on the anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Cyprus.
The letter is signed by Giorgos Georgiou, Vasos Dimitriou, Frida Grigoriadou, Marios Kyrou, Adonis Konstantinou, Achilleas Malachouridis, Dimitris Pavlidis, Evangelia Sizopoulou, Petros Stylianakis, Marios Channides and Stelios Charalambous.
The response
Some in the party say the balance of power in the political bureau does not favour change and that the body is politically controlled by those who ran the party before.
Party sources say the political bureau approved Makri’s proposal for the new organisational chart. On the minutes, they say the Central Committee secretary resigned in the time of Nikos Anastasiou, so there is in effect no one to record the body’s meetings. Makri raised the issue in the bureau.
The items the signatories wanted added to the agenda were reportedly already on the agenda of a meeting they did not attend.
According to party sources, some of the signatories are affected by the decisions on the organisational chart, and others have lost their membership of the body and should have been replaced because of absences.
