In parliamentary elections May 22 in the island nation of Cyprus, the governing AKEL party - the island's Communist Party - gained seats and increased its voting percentage.
AKEL, the Progressive Party of Working People, increased its representation by one seat over the 2006 elections, for a total of 19 seats in the 56-member House of Representatives, as the body is called. Its percentage of the vote also increased to 32.67 percent.
Those elected included AKEL General Secretary Andros Kyprianou and the head of the party's International Relations Department, George Loukaides. The president of Cyprus, Dimitris Christofias, elected in 2008, was previously AKEL general secretary.
AKEL's good showing can in part be attributed to the hard work of the party's rank and file who, before the election, knocked on virtually every door in Cyprus.
But credit also is due to the pro-people program that the AKEL government has implemented since 2008. One measure that stands out is the increase in the minimum wage to a level, which, dollar for dollar, is actually slightly higher then that in the U.S.
Cypriot President Christofias has said that Cyprus will never adapt anti-people policies as a response to the global capitalist economic crisis.
But despite AKEL's good results, its partner in the governing coalition, the Democratic Party or DIKO, lost 2 seats and now holds 9, giving the AKEL-DIKO coalition a total of 28 seats. And the right-wing opposition Democratic Rally party known as DISY gained 2 seats, for a total of 20 seats, one more than AKEL. In addition, the Social Democratic Party EDEK, and the European Party or EVROKO, a right-wing splinter off DISY, won 5 and 2 seats respectively.
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