During the war, Britain makes no move…
1936 CE to 1947 CE
After October 1941, however, political meetings are condoned, and permission is granted by the governor for the formation of political parties.
Without delay Cypriot communists establish the Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou—AKEL) as the successor to an earlier communist party that had been established in the 1920s and proscribed during the 1930s.
Because of Western wartime alliances with the Soviet Union, the communist label in 1941 is not the anathema that it will later become; nevertheless, some Orthodox clerics and middle-class merchants are alarmed at the appearance of the new party.
At the time, a loose federation of nationalists backed by the church and working for enosis and the
Panagrarian Union of Cyprus (Panagrotiki Enosis Kyprou — PEK), the nationalist peasant association, oppose AKEL.