On October 16, Cypriot Member of the European Parliament Fidias Panayiotou announced the creation of a political party, which he called Direct Democracy.
“This is the most important statement of my life. Guys, more than a year has passed since I became a member of the European Parliament, and now we have seen in practice that one independent politician cannot change the situation alone,” he said in a video on social networks.
“Guys, I have come to the conclusion that to achieve change we need to gain power in parliament!”
He also said that his party would be “completely different from others” and that “its goal is not just to slap the system again, but this time to change it from within.”
“The way democracy works now is that decisions are made by the people we vote for every five years, and I believe it’s finally time to end that model and replace it with a new type of democracy,” the politician said.
This new type of democracy, he added, will be “more direct and democratic,” which he said will “allow every person to participate in discussions, decision-making and even the voting process itself.”
“So, based on these ideas, the name of the party cannot be other than ‘Direct Democracy’, and the main idea is that we make all decisions together,” he said.
And this will be possible thanks to a new mobile application, with the help of this application party members will choose all 56 names that will be included in the party's ballot for the parliamentary elections next year.
“Anyone who can run on our ballot can do so, and it could be you who are watching this video right now,” Fidias added.
He said the practice would continue if the party managed to get some of its members elected to parliament next year, where party members could "vote together on what [direct democracy MPs] will vote on on important issues that they will have to deal with in parliament."
“What we guys are going to do has never happened before, and to be honest, even I still don’t have a clear idea of how we will organize it and how it will work. And, of course, like everything new, it is very likely that this initiative will fail,” he concluded.
“It's definitely something completely different than what we're used to. If the project is successful, then this format will be applicable not only in Cyprus, but throughout the world.
And now it’s time to tell you what you propose to implement this idea, how, in your opinion, it should be done, because, as I already told you, our goal is to build this party together.”
Source: cyprus-mail.com
