Disy defends presidential election spending

Disy on Wednesday went on the defensive after a controversial but largely unsurprising report by the auditor general on spending during last year’s presidential election.

The party denied it exceeded the legal limit and stressed “every effort was made to present the income and expenses fairly and objectively.”

A day earlier, the audit service revealed that Nikos Christodoulides and Andreas Mavroyiannis exceeded the €1 million legal limit in their presidential election spending, while Disy and Elam failed to be thoroughly transparent over their funding during the campaign.

The report detailed Neophytou received €530,000 from Disy as party funding but also paid almost €40,000 “in violation of the relevant legislation”.

Disy said the €40,000 was for road signs and the payment was made in January 2023 – outside of the six-month election period but it was still included.

The remaining €30,000 concerns “invoices that arrived late and were also reported in full transparency during the audit”.

Disy MP and presidential candidate in the 2023 elections Averof Neophytou hit back on Tuesday over the report, taking issue with the fact that the audit report only looked at the three political parties that participated in the presidential election with their own candidate.

“Based on the audit service’s report, Akel, Diko, Edek and Depa neither had, nor did they support candidates. They had no participation whatsoever and did not spend a single cent on the pre-election campaign.”

Neophytou was making a highly sarcastic dig, particularly over Christodoulides who chose to run as an independent rather than a Disy candidate and had the backing of all the centre parties.