President’s election campaign hit with €36,000 fine

Nikos Christodoulides’ presidential campaign office was hit with a €36,000 fine on Tuesday for violating the election rules in the run up to the elections.

The fine came from personal data protection commissioner Irene Loizidou-Nicolaidou and concerned 37 complaints about unwanted calls or messages from Christodoulides’ team.

In total, there were 77 reports filed to the commissioner’s office, of which 44 were given total fines of €41,000.

Four cases were reported to police and for six of them, there was a warning. With one other case there was a recommendation and four concerned polls.

According to Nicolaidou, 18 complaints were deemed to not have the necessary evidence and were withdrawn.

Those that resulted in fines included 37 complaints over Christodoulides’ election campaign, resulting in the €36,000 fine.

Another four complaints concerned texts from Antigoni Papadopoulou, leading to her getting a €3,000 fine.

Three reports concerned text messages from Tasoulla Tsokou, resulting with a €2,000 fine.

In total, 48 out of the 77 complaints were forwarded to the electoral service.