This is an election, not a beauty pageant… Who is the leader seen with S Jaishankar, who was once taunted on her beauty?

At present a delegation of Cyprus has come to India, with which Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar met. This high level delegation is being led by the President of the House of Representatives of Cyprus, Miss Anita Demetriou. He talked about India-Cyprus friendship and relations between the two countries. Pictures of Anita Demetriu’s visit are also viral on social media. The current Speaker of the Cyprus Parliament, Anita Demetriu, may look calm and easy-going, but her journey in politics has not been easy at all. He had to struggle a lot to reach this level.

Anita was born in the village of Trullous in Larnaca. He started politics in 2012, at the age of only 27, from the local community council. Later, she was the District Secretary of Disi from 2013–2015 and the Finance Manager of Larnaca from 2014–2016. A controversy in 2016 brought her national recognition. Before the parliamentary elections, Anita was chosen as the candidate for the Larnaca seat in the internal poll of the Disi party. Then suddenly the party announced that she had voluntarily stepped down from the post, to make room for another candidate, Yiannakis Yiannaki.

This decision caused anger throughout Cyprus. Both party workers and the public were angry that even after voting, politics like changing tickets was being done. Ultimately, after immense pressure, Yanaki decided to step back and Anita got a chance to contest the elections. Anita won this election and became an MP.

Anita’s calm, restrained attitude during this controversy later became her political identity. He neither accused anyone nor protested, he just talked about moving forward. Later, the irony was that Yanaki got embroiled in a fake degree scandal, while Anita continued to move ahead in politics.

When Anita was contesting the elections, DISI spokesperson Prodoromos Prodoromou had said on TV that ‘we are contesting the elections, no beauty contest is going on’. This statement was made against Anita, but in the coming years, the situation became such that this comment often went against Prodoromou, because Anita rose rapidly. She was elected MP twice.

At the age of 35, she became the first woman and youngest Speaker of the Parliament of Cyprus. Anita, who is also in the news due to her glamorous style, studied social and political sciences from the University of Cyprus. She did her Masters in International Relations at the University of Kent and was the election spokesperson for presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades in 2018. She is married and her husband’s name is Andreas Kyprianu.