Demetriou withdraws from presidential nomination race
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The contest for the Democratic Rally nomination has narrowed after Annita Demetriou, the house president, withdrew her interest. The move has turned an internal party race into a public airing of grievances. George Pamporidis, a former health minister, claims a newspaper publisher was used to pressure his own political future, while Ionas Nikolaou, a former justice minister, is now weighing a bid of his own.
The government has appointed a former special operations commander to run the prison service, a change in administration that coincides with the Legal Service’s refusal to suspend criminal prosecutions linked to prison documents. Elsewhere, authorities are preparing a report into a former minister alleged to have filed a false declaration of wealth.
National demographics are shifting as new data shows births to third-country national mothers rising while those to Cypriot mothers decline. The trend is one of several domestic pressures facing the president, who has also been asked to personally intervene in the case of a 23-year-old with autism for whom the state has no adequate care structure.