Alma launched a fierce attack against former president Nicos Anastasiades on Thursday after comments he made regarding the party’s leader Odysseas Michaelides during a televised interview.

The movement accused Anastasiades of contributing to institutional decline and corruption in Cyprus, declaring that “in a normal democracy and an incorruptible rule of law” he “might be in prison today”.

The statement came in response to remarks made by Anastasiades during an interview with Vergina TV, where he criticised what he described as a climate of “toxicity”, “nihilism” and “people’s courts” being pervasive in Cypriot political life.

Referring to former auditor general Michaelides, Anastasiades said “I am his obsession, but unfortunately I studied law and not psychiatry in order to observe him more closely.”

Alma condemned the comment as an attempt to discredit a political opponent and accused Disy figures of systematically attacking Michaelides.

The movement said party officials had sought to portray him as “obsessive” and possessing a “sick mind”.

“If Anastasiades were in totalitarian regimes, he would probably request the confinement of the ‘dissident’ Michaelides in a psychiatric hospital,” Alma remarked.

“in modern European states the only ones deemed worthy of confinement are those who harm the public interest and those who abuse public power.”

The movement directly linked Anastasiades to a series of controversies from his presidency, including the golden passports scandal, the Panama Papers and allegations concerning institutional interference.

It described him as “a completely immoral politician” whose name had become associated with “collusion and corruption”.

Alma also accused Disy of using allegations of “toxicity” to divert attention from scandals connected to its years in government.

“Toxicity has always been the argument of people who fostered corruption in order to divert attention away from their schemes,” the statement said.

Anastasiades had warned during his interview that Cyprus risked creating a ‘Parliament of Babel’ because of increasing populism and fragmentation in political life.

Alma concluded its response that it was seeking to challenge what it described as “political arrogance and political selfishness in public life”.