Political parties are discussing the increase of the number of deputies from 56 to 63. The proposal was discussed on Thursday at the House interior committee, submitted by its chairman and Edek leader Marinos Sizopoulos. He also introduced the idea of having national candidates in the ballot.

Predictably, no party expressed any reservation about the idea of increasing the number of deputies, which can be done without an amendment of the constitution and would cost the taxpayer about €600,000 per year, according to a report in Phileleftheros. The main concern of deputies discussing the proposal was to present arguments in support of having more deputies.

For example, the constitution of 1960 for the bicommunal state stipulated that 70 per cent of the 50 seats in the House of Representatives would go to the Greek Cypriot community. After the departure of the Turkish Cypriots in 1964, the House had 35 representatives. In 1985 the total number of seats increased to 80 so there were 56 deputies (70 per cent of the total, in line with the constitution). And now Sizopoulos wants the seats tobe increased to 90 so there would be 63 Greek Cypriot representatives. Thus, everything is in line with the 1960 constitution, it was argued.

A dubious argument used to support the increase was that Malta, which is a smaller country, had 67 members of parliament, our deputies ignoring the fact that Malta was a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential democracy like Cyprus, where deputies do not participate in the government. And Malta was the worst possible example, considering it has the highest number of deputies per 100,000 inhabitants in the EU – 14.5 according to 2020 statistics.

Interestingly, Cyprus has 6.5 deputies per 100,000 inhabitants, the fourth highest number in the EU and it is not even a parliamentary democracy. It was disingenuous for deputies to make comparisons with Malta. They did not mention Greece in this case which has 2.8 per 100,000 or the big EU countries like Germany, Spain, France which have less than one deputy per 100,000; Italy has one per 100,000.

Sizopoulos pointed out that 56 deputies were not enough to meet the “increased international, inter-parliamentary obligations of the House of Representatives.” Given their volume of work, their number should have been increased by 14 and not just seven, he said. Perhaps, if deputies treated their parliamentary work as a full-time job (their remuneration of about €80,000 per year is for full-time work) and did not also run private businesses and practices, they would have had no trouble coping with their workload, for which they are provided with full-time assistants. They could also cut down on their parliamentary-related trips abroad, many of which are paid holidays.

Under the circumstances, it is extremely difficult to view Sizopoulos’ proposal for more parliamentary seats as anything other than an attempt to create more taxpayer-funded, highly paid jobs for the members of the political class. This is why the parties are united on the matter and no deputy questioned the proposal. Unless there is a strong public reaction, the parties will sneakily pass the proposal, without consultation or debate, even if it politically, economically and ethically unjustified.