Up to 16 positions are up for grabs as the House plenum votes on Thursday for the chairmanships of the House committees.

The vote on the committee chairmanships and their composition will be preceded by a vote on the total number of committees, with the options being 14, 15 or 16, following a proposal of Elam, which had suggested that the number of committees be reduced from 16 to 14. That suggestion does not currently have sufficient support to proceed.

To secure a chairmanship, a party must have at least seven MPs, with the distribution of the chairs most likely to be decided between the four strongest parties Disy, Akel, Diko and Elam.

The number of eligible chairmanships per party will be based on the shares received in the recent parliamentary elections

However, during the previous legislative period, chairmanships were granted to smaller parties in the House, including the Ecologists’ Movement (environment) and Edek (defence). This time around Alma and Direct Democracy fall into that category.

Akel and Disy will receive the chairmanship of most of the committees, while Diko and Elam are likely to receive the chairmanship of between two and three committees each.