Charalambides hands human rights committee chair to Koukoumas

The House human rights committee will be chaired by Akel MP Giorgos Koukoumas, who is taking over office from his party colleague Irene Charalambides after the committee’s meeting on Monday.

“Today I am chairing the human rights committee for the last time,” Charalambides said.

“Mr Koukoumas is taking over and I am happy to hand over the chairmanship to such capable hands. I have always been in favour of him and what he says or writes to me, I will maintain this stance,” she said.

Charalambides expressed her gratitude for the fruitful cooperation with the committee’s MPs over the years. Several, including Volt’s Alexandra Attalides and Diko’s Christos Senekis, reciprocated the compliments, lauding the effective work of the committee under her leadership.

“You were the right person in the right position,” Senekis said.

The change in the committee’s chair follows Charalambides’ removal from Akel’s parliamentary group in earlier in February.

At the time, Charalambides said the decision had been made unilaterally by the party’s leadership, and accused the party of undermining her character to fit a partisan narrative.

The dispute marked the culmination of months of strained relations between Charalambides and Akel, following the party’s decision to enforce its internal term limits ahead of the May parliamentary elections.

The limitation of MPs to two terms by Akel’s party rules rendered Charalambides ineligible to run again on the party’s ballot as she is currently serving her third consecutive terms.

Koukoumas is an MP for the Famagusta district.