“The government will not be drawn into pre-election campaigning,” President Nikos Christodoulides said on Friday, dismissing criticism against his administration as political posturing.

The president was responding to criticism about a decision announced on Wednesday that no action would be taken against hunters who closed the highway to stage a demonstration in March.

Meanwhile, opposition party Akel intensified its demands for the resignation of Justice Minister Marios Hartsiotis, accusing him of being politically “absent” from his duties, and charging that the unacceptable tolerance shown for the hunter’s protest bore marks of involvement “at the highest level”.

Addressing the demand from opposition party Akel for the minister’s resignation Christodoulides told reporters, “it is the sixth or seventh time that Akel has called on [the minister] to resign.”

“I am aware that pre-electioneering has started and as the executive branch we do not involve ourselves in parliamentary elections and campaigns,” he said.

“This is the message. They can exercise criticism daily, we will not get involved.”

The president went on to defend his own actions regarding the hunters, saying he had “picked up the telephone” [to them] “to put a stop to the inconvenience experienced by the public as a result of their protest.

“I [didn’t] think if I will be judged, condemned, heralded, or not. I am only interested in solving problems, that’s why I intervened,” Christodoulides said.

The president added that he had seen the statements by both the attorney-general and the chief-of-police.

Anyone can make public statements, but institutions “must cooperate for the good of the people. This is [their] responsibility and my demand from everyone,” the president said.

Following a meeting of the House legal committee, Attorney-General George Savvides on Thursday said proceedings to examine the legality of the hunter’s protest on March 25 had ended.

On Wednesday police chief Themistos Arnaoutis had said there would be “no further investigation” into the protest. He told the House legal committee that the AG had issued instructions not to investigate further and that “no disciplinary offence” was found.

Hartsiotis told the committee that the best way to prevent such phenomena was to create “an institutionalised regime for events and parades”, so that it would be evident who was responsible if matters got out of hand.

At present there is no such system therefore, “no one can be held accountable”, he said.

Savvides said as examination of the police report showed officers themselves had blocked off the highway and tolerated the hunter’s actions, there was “no leeway to promote penal prosecution of the protest’s participants and the matter did not fall under the purview of the AG.”

Member of the legal committee Akel MP Aristos Damianou on Friday told CyBC, however, that information previously provided to MPs and the public about the nature of the protest had been deliberately misleading, and the law had clearly not been upheld.

“It is now clear that there had been pre-arranged collusion [between police and the hunters] to facilitate a demonstration which inconvenienced thousands, with an hours-long highway closure and the lighting of BBQs,” Damianou said. Some of those on the protest were pictured cooking meat on BBQs.

Damianou said serious legal issues were raised over the handling of the situation by police and that the responsibility ultimately rests with the justice minister.

The fact that no protesters had been called to testify during the legal proceedings “speaks for itself”, he said.

The MP said the hunters had undoubtedly received inappropriate preferential treatment and accused the state of seeking to impose unequal measures for spontaneous demonstrations, in light of the suggested regulation of gatherings currently under debate.

Hartsiotis had exhibited “repeated failures” in his handling of public justice and order, the MP said, with the latest being his management of the Easter bonfires.

Hartsiotis said he would not be drawn into Akel’s populist pre-election campaign.