The ruling conservatives became the winners, but they failed to obtain an absolute majority because voters turned to smaller parties.

The far-right ELAM party and the centrist separatist organization have made significant progress in the Cyprus parliamentary elections, because amid the dissatisfaction of the voters with the traditional power centers, considerable supporters seem to have given up support for the top three parties.

Calculated by 100% of the votes, Elam received 6.78% of the votes on Sunday-an increase of 3% from the previous general election in 2016-and defeated the socialist EDEK party by a narrow margin of about 200 votes.

The centrist DIPA is composed of key figures from the center-right DIKO party, which has traditionally been the third largest party, with 6.1% of the vote.

The center-right DISY ranked first with 27.77% of the votes, 5.4% higher than the Communist-based second-place AKEL.

However, the political parties lost 2.9% and 3.3% of their support in the last election.

AKEL Secretary General Andros Kyprianou said at a gathering: “The result was beyond our expectations.” “We respect it, and we will examine it carefully to draw conclusions, but we can say now We failed to convince (our supporters).”

Democratic Assembly (DISY) Chairman Averof Neofytou voted in the capital Nicosia [Christos Avraamides/PIO/AFP]

“Very big failure”

Analyst Christoforos Christoforou said the results showed that DISY and AKEL were “very big failures” in convincing their policy interests to gather more supporters.

The last vote of the DISY leader’s appeal limited the voter’s estimated loss of 5% to 3%.

Christopheru said that the real winner is Ilam, with its strong anti-immigration platform and hard-line nationalist policies and DIPA (DIPA), whose senior officials are still connected with former ministers and legislators and the center of political power.

He said the high election threshold of 3.6% means that 15,000 voters who voted for smaller parties that did not win any seats have no voice in Parliament.

Opinion polls in the weeks leading up to the vote show that DISY and AKEL will shed blood in support as disappointed voters seek alternatives in smaller parties.

The election will not affect the operation of the government in this divided Mediterranean island country, because the executive power is in the hands of the president, and the president is elected separately.

Of the nearly 558,000 eligible voters, approximately 65.73% voted for the 56 Greek Cypriot seats in Parliament. The voter turnout rate decreased by 1% from the previous vote.

AKEL Secretary General Andros Kyprianou voted [Andreas Andreou/PIO/AFP]

The key issues in the campaign are the country’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the expected economic restart as the country increases its vaccination efforts.

The Cyprus government insists that immigration has exceeded the limit and cannot accept more immigrants, so immigration has always been a problem.

The smaller parties called on voters not to accept DISY. They said DISY was burdened by corruption.

An independent investigation into Cyprus’ defunct citizenship investment program found that the government illegally issued passports to the relatives of thousands of wealthy investors, some of whom had dark past lives.

One Al Jazeera survey It was discovered that the program involved several senior Cypriot officials, politicians, lawyers and real estate developers, and the program allowed criminals to use the citizenship investment program to purchase European passports.