Anastasia Anthousi withdraws election petition in Nicosia district

Former DISY parliamentary candidate Anastasia Anthousi officially withdrew her legal challenge before the Election Court on Wednesday, ending the judicial process regarding the May 24 legislative election results in the Nicosia district. The case, filed in July, centered on the vote count at a polling station in Nikitari. Anthousi contested the validity of a correction made after the initial count, which saw five ballots reallocated from ELAM to EDEK. She claimed this change occurred nearly two hours after the unofficial 100 percent result announcement, at a time when electoral representatives who had signed off on the initial tally had already left the site.

Anthousi argued that this adjustment led to a ripple effect, ultimately altering the distribution of parliamentary seats across four electoral districts and resulting in her failure to secure a seat in Nicosia, despite receiving 7,606 votes. While the Election Court approved the withdrawal, closing the file, Anthousi stated that she remains unsatisfied with the lack of transparent answers regarding the alleged error. She emphasized that she is withdrawing the court case, but not the questions surrounding the integrity of the process, maintaining that a recount of the specific ballot box was the only reliable way to verify the discrepancy.