With one week to go before Sunday’s vote, the final stretch of this campaign promises to be gruelling for everyone involved. The push of recent days — both in policy positioning and ground-level mobilisation — appears to have paid dividends for the established parties. That shift in momentum has already begun to unsettle the newer formations, which have shown signs of retreating in voter sentiment.
The traditional parties’ late surge is reflected in last week’s published polling. But the margins remain so thin in most cases that everything is still in play on election day.
What the past few days have revealed most clearly is the contrast in how the old parties and the new formations handle pressure. The three largest — DISY, AKEL and DIKO — have been throwing down policy challenges and turning up the heat on their rivals. The newer formations, ALMA chief among them, have looked unprepared for scrutiny, showing that their reach extends little beyond accusations and attacks.
Anger and discontent
This is the first time in Cyprus’s political history that the picture one week before an election has been so unclear. There was a partial echo of this in the 2024 European elections, but those had the peculiarity of being multiple concurrent contests.
Much of this uncertainty flows from the anger and discontent of an electorate that is in a punitive mood towards the existing party system. It is no coincidence that every poll conducted during 2026 has recorded unprecedented dissatisfaction with the parties voters chose five years ago. To varying degrees, but with a certain consistency, voters across the board — whether their party was in government or has spent years in opposition — say they are unhappy with what their party has delivered.
Tradition versus risk
The Cypriot voter is not, by instinct, a risk-taker at the ballot box. They tend to vote for what they know, what they trust, and what poses no threat to what they have. They prefer to swallow their disappointment rather than act on it.
That, at least, has been the pattern until now. Even in 2024, when Fidias Panayiotou’s election to the European Parliament suggested a tremor in the electorate, local government voters moved in entirely traditional directions. The explanation is telling: local officials have a direct relationship with voters’ daily lives. An MEP, by contrast, feels remote — and therefore low-risk.
What they believe versus what works
DISY and AKEL enter the final stretch visibly stronger than they were three or four months ago — let alone a year ago. It may seem paradoxical, but it is the unwritten law of major electoral contests and has nothing to do with anything else.
As polling day approaches, voters face an informal but powerful psychological dilemma: vote for what they believe in, or vote for what they think will actually get things done. For many — particularly those who are politically engaged — the final choice becomes a vote for effectiveness. They set aside their grievances and back whoever they judge most capable of delivering results. Nikos Anastasiades’s 2018 election victory is one such example.
First, but under pressure
DISY enters the final hundred metres with a narrow lead and appears to have more resources than its rivals. It has largely stopped the bleeding — primarily towards ELAM but also towards newer formations. A second significant factor has been messaging around the party’s relationship with the Christodoulides government.
The sense that tensions have eased, and that the two sides could cooperate after the election for the good of the country — setting aside past bitterness — appears to be working in DISY’s favour. It is also clear that voters in the traditional right-wing space have responded positively to reports and signals pointing towards a future alliance.
In 2021, DISY won with 27.77%, leading AKEL by 5.4 percentage points. The picture ahead of May 24 shows a figure close to 19-20% and a lead of just one point over AKEL. In practice, this is a dead heat — meaning first place will be decided by the details: district-by-district voter concentration, last-minute turnout, and how well each party’s organisation performs on the day.
An opposition that hasn’t broken through
Nobody disputes that AKEL is the opposition party par excellence. It has spent 13 years facing successive right-wing governments. Yet that record has not translated into broader electoral reward. Over the same period, AKEL has not grown its support — quite the opposite. Its vote share has fallen at each successive election. It retains its existing voters but cannot win new ones.
AKEL’s current position is not far removed from the 22.34% it secured in the 2021 parliamentary elections. That is partly why the party appears to be moving with a degree of calm, untroubled by its failure to hoover up all the protest votes on offer.
It has nonetheless made targeted moves — primarily aimed at ALMA — to stop any leakage, some of which was triggered by Irene Charalambides’s defection.
Holding what it has was and remains the first priority for Ezekias Papaioannou. Anything beyond that will be a bonus.
ELAM’s big rise
ELAM is the clearest upward story of this electoral cycle. From 6.78% in 2021 to figures approaching 10-12% — a rise of close to five percentage points. Every indication and poll puts ELAM clearly in third place.
In 2021 ELAM finished fourth with four seats. If current trends hold, 2026 could end with six or seven seats — an upgrade that would change its role in the new parliament.
ELAM’s geography is its most striking feature. In Famagusta, the party appears to be leading — breaking the traditional DISY-AKEL duopoly across all districts. In Larnaca it shows considerable strength, and across the board its internal voter cohesion ranks among the highest of any party: the hallmark of a party with a clear identity and a loyal base that does not waver.
At the same time, the flow of DISY voters towards ELAM has slowed noticeably compared to previous cycles, suggesting that ELAM has largely completed the expansion it achieved at the expense of DISY’s right wing.
DIKO: the comeback
DIKO is one of the more compelling chapters of this election. It has been in continuous decline for five years, sitting well below the 11.29% it recorded in 2021. Its participation in the Christodoulides government has not done it many favours. Every poll over at least the past year has shown it tracking very low, with heavy losses.
The internal cohesion that was weak at the start of the campaign appears to have strengthened meaningfully in recent weeks. Third place looks out of reach, but the party appears to be holding its ground and resisting the pull of newer formations. Its recent challenge to Odysseas Michaelides appears to have landed well with the electorate — and particularly with the mass of DIKO figures who had grown uncomfortable with the party’s intermittent support for the former Auditor General.
ALMA: the rise, the fall and the irritability
ALMA is one of the more fascinating phenomena of this election. A party that did not exist in 2021, it climbed quickly in voter preference, peaked early in the campaign, and has been sliding since.
As a party formed at the last moment — Odysseas Michaelides himself still acknowledges that it was never an end in itself — it has assembled a remarkably mixed coalition: voters drawn from DISY, AKEL, DIKO and EDEK. That ideological heterogeneity is both a sign of breadth and a weakness of identity.
Voters who back a party for strategic or negative reasons rather than ideological conviction are more likely to abandon it at the last moment. That is the risk ALMA faces in the final week: a portion of its declared support remains soft. If those voters switch or stay home, its final result could fall well short of expectations.
The pressure is already being felt at ALMA’s Prodromou Street offices, where rival parties’ efforts to peel away its voters are causing visible irritation. Attacks on journalists — even for the questions they ask — are a clear sign of that irritability and an inability to handle scrutiny. They also suggest that Odysseas Michaelides and those around him want to impose their position without being challenged — a dangerous posture for a movement that presents itself as anti-establishment.
Operating in the same anti-establishment space is Direct Democracy, which through Fidias Panayiotou appears set to secure parliamentary representation — though nobody can quite determine where its voters are coming from. It began as a space for previously abstaining voters and some ELAM supporters, before drawing from DISY’s orbit. What results is yet another mixed coalition whose intentions on Sunday nobody can say with any certainty.
Parties on the threshold: EDEK, the Ecologists, DIPA, Volt
Four parties are fighting for their parliamentary survival.
EDEK has its own particular dynamic. Its vote has collapsed compared to 2021 — from 6.72% then to around 2% now — but the core that remains is resolute. Almost everyone who declares themselves an EDEK voter is certain of that choice: the highest certainty rating of any party. That partisan loyalty may prove the socialists’ salvation. This is the first time in EDEK’s history that it has faced such a serious threat to its existence, and that may itself serve as a wake-up call to its voters.
The Ecologists find themselves in the same zone of uncertainty. They won 4.41% and three seats in 2021. Now, at around 2%, their parliamentary presence is not guaranteed. A notable improvement in internal cohesion over recent weeks leaves open the possibility of a strong performance in specific districts that could secure at least one seat.
DIPA represents the most dramatic collapse of the cycle. From 6.10% in its first-ever election to around 1.1% now — four seats in the 2021-2026 parliamentary cycle and now facing the prospect of none. A series of events and circumstances led to the current situation. It has shown in previous elections that it has its own traditional machinery, which may yet prove the salvation of Marios Karoyan’s party — who has chosen not to stand as a candidate.
Volt is the wild card of this election. At around 3%, it sits in an uncertain zone for parliamentary representation, yet appears to be performing well locally. It is one of the biggest unknowns of this contest, and it remains to be seen whether a series of recent events will ultimately work in the party’s favour.
Where the battle will be decided
Six factors will determine the outcome on May 24.
First: whether DISY can maintain a safe distance from AKEL, particularly in areas where it holds a stronger position. Voter mobilisation will be decisive for both.
Second: whether ALMA and Direct Democracy can resist the haemorrhage of supporters. Both have fluid electorates with higher-than-average uncertainty rates. If a significant portion decides at the last moment to back one of the larger parties, the numbers could shift dramatically.
Third: whether EDEK, the Ecologists and DIPA survive. These parties could surprise in either direction, and their success or failure will determine whether the new parliament has seven, eight or ten parties.
Fourth: whether Volt secures parliamentary representation. It has built a genuinely distinct dynamic. Whether that translates into seats on Sunday remains to be seen.
Fifth: whether higher turnout benefits the new parties or the traditional ones. Voters returning from abstention tend to favour alternatives. If that pattern holds here, the new formations gain. If the undecided fall back on the major parties, the new formations lose.
Sixth, and perhaps most decisive: the quality of each party’s provincial organisation. In an election where many vote shares are wafer-thin and seats are decided by fractions of a percentage point, the ability to mobilise local activists and get declared supporters physically to the polls could make all the difference.
If current trends hold, the new House of Representatives will be the most fragmented in Cyprus’s modern history.
One week before May 24, the Cypriot electoral landscape is open to more surprises than it appears. The broad picture is clear enough: DISY first, AKEL second, ELAM third. Beyond that, every contest is open and uncertain.
That uncertainty is the very nature of democratic elections. The voter always has the last word — and will have it on May 24.
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