If Cyprus distributed all parliamentary seats exclusively within each district — without the second and third national-level distributions — DISY would have won 26 seats instead of 17, the House would have been five-party, and Direct Democracy Cyprus would not have entered parliament at all. That is the finding of a Phileleftheros exercise applied to the actual results of the May 25, 2026 elections.
The exercise was prompted by a debate that opened on election night about the fairness of the current system — one that once again produced candidates with several thousand votes left outside parliament while others entered with just two or three hundred.
Under the current law, only the first distribution is purely district-based. The second and third distributions factor in national remainders across parties.
Phileleftheros simplified the model: every district distributes its own seats in full. In the first round, seats go to candidates who cleared their district’s electoral quotient — including party leaders, who need no preference votes provided their party clears the quotient. Any remaining seats are filled in the second round by the highest-ranked remaining candidates across all parties in that district.
Nicosia
In Nicosia, where the electoral quotient is 6,838 votes, 14 MPs would have been returned in the first round — including four party leaders — and five more in the second. DISY’s six first-round qualifiers were D. Dimitriou (13,157), G. Pamboridis (12,040), S. Orfanidou (11,367), A. Konstantinou (10,234), Ch. Petridis (8,252) and A. Anthousi (7,606). AKEL returned leader Stefanos Stefanou plus Ch. Christofidis (10,917), A. Damianou (10,672), G. Loukaidis (10,528) and K. Konstantinou (9,986). ELAM leader Chr. Christou, N. Papadopoulos (DIKO) and O. Michaelides (ALMA) also cleared the quotient.
The five remaining seats went to M. Pelekanos (6,681), E. Kousiou Chatzidimitriou (6,332), T. Pavlou (5,963), E. Charalambidou (5,928) and Ch. Erotokritou (5,844). District result: DISY 8, AKEL 5, ELAM 2, DIKO 2, ALMA 2. Current result: DISY 5, AKEL 5, ELAM 3, DIKO 3, ALMA 2, Direct Democracy Cyprus 1.
Limassol
In Limassol, only one candidate cleared the district quotient of 6,072 votes: Fotini Tsieridou of DISY, with 6,956 preference votes. The remaining 11 seats were filled by ranking: Efr. Christou (4,966), M. Fellas (4,856), M. Nikolaou (4,294), A. Ioannou (3,803), M. Kafkalias (3,690) and others. District result: DISY and AKEL five seats each, ELAM and DIKO one each. Current result: DISY 4, AKEL 3, ELAM 2, DIKO 1, Direct Democracy Cyprus 1, ALMA 1.
Famagusta
Famagusta has the highest electoral quotient — 7,022 — and only four candidates cleared it: N. Kettiros (11,510) and G. Koukoumas (9,292) of AKEL, and G. Karoulas (9,540) and N. Georgiou (7,723) of DISY. The remaining seven seats were filled by ranking, with L. Papayiannis (7,003) first among them. District result: DISY 6, AKEL 3, ELAM 2. Current result: DISY and AKEL three each, ELAM 2, DIKO 1, Direct Democracy Cyprus 1, ALMA 1.
Larnaca
Larnaca is the only district where the alternative scenario would have produced identical results. The quotient stands at 6,585 votes, cleared by Andreas Pasiurtidis (7,698, AKEL), DISY leader Annita Demetriou, and Prodromos Alamritis (7,297, DISY). The three remaining seats went to P. Xiourouppas (5,090), A. Apostolou (3,679) and S. Ioannou (3,158). Result: AKEL and DISY two seats each, ELAM and DIKO one each — identical to today.
Paphos and Kyrenia
Paphos and Kyrenia are the two districts where no candidate cleared the electoral quotient. In Paphos the quotient is 6,725, and the leading candidate, Chr. Savvides, reached only 4,832 votes. District result: DISY 3, AKEL and DIKO one each. Current result: DISY 2, AKEL 1, DIKO 1, Direct Democracy Cyprus 1.
In Kyrenia the quotient is 6,294, and the leading candidate, An. Chasikou, reached just 2,240 votes. District result: DISY 2, AKEL 1. Current result: AKEL, DISY and DIKO one each.
The overall picture
Across all districts, the Phileleftheros scenario produces a five-party House: DISY 26, AKEL 17, ELAM 6, DIKO 5, ALMA 2. The current result: DISY 17, AKEL 15, ELAM and DIKO eight each, ALMA and Direct Democracy Cyprus four each.
Direct Democracy Cyprus would have been shut out entirely, as none of its candidates came close to clearing the quotient in any district. DISY, by contrast, would have benefited from the wide spread of preference votes across its candidates.
The current system allows more parties to enter parliament and ensures broader party representation within each district. Nicosia currently returns six parties; under this scenario it would return five.
Limassol returns six, against four under the scenario. Famagusta would drop from six parties to three. Paphos from four to three, Kyrenia from three to two. Only Larnaca would remain unchanged.
Fewer votes than individual MPs
The parties that missed parliament — particularly those above three per cent — gathered fewer votes in total than some individual MPs. EDEK received 12,099 votes, fewer than DISY’s D. Dimitriou alone.
The Hunters’ Party (11,890), DIPA (11,693) and Volt (11,487) each fell short of G. Pamboridis’s personal tally. The Ecologists, with 7,264 votes, trailed well behind MPs elected in Nicosia, Famagusta and Larnaca from both DISY and AKEL.
