Makarios Drousiotis has rejected claims that his allegations and public statements over the Sandy case were responsible for Volt’s failure to secure parliamentary representation in the May 24 parliamentary elections.
In a lengthy post after the election, the journalist and Volt candidate responded to those who, he said, were blaming him for the party’s result, arguing that the available evidence did not support such a claim.
“Some people, without any evidence, are blaming me for Volt’s failure to be represented in parliament. The available data do not confirm this assessment,” he said.
According to Drousiotis, before the publication of his allegations and posts about the Sandy case, Volt was polling at around 2%, while it later recorded a significant rise.
“Before the publications, Volt was at 2% and afterwards, according to the polls, it more than doubled its percentage,” he said.
Drousiotis attributed the party’s eventual failure to enter parliament not to the allegations or to the public debate surrounding him, but to the pressure he said was exerted in the final stretch of the election campaign.
He said that, “despite the sabotage by partisan media”, Volt maintained the levels recorded in opinion polls, but in the “final 24 hours” was unable to withstand “the pressure of the mechanisms of the major parties”.
In the same post, he argued that Volt’s electoral map showed its message had greater appeal in urban centres and among Cypriots abroad. He made specific reference to Nicosia and to overseas polling stations, citing strong results in cities such as Brussels and London.
Drousiotis also repeated that he was not withdrawing anything he had alleged in relation to the Sandy case, insisting that “there was no fake news” and saying he was prepared to face any potential criminal proceedings.
Volt received 11,487 votes, or 3.1%, in the parliamentary elections, remaining outside parliament despite expectations during the campaign that it could secure representation.
