Seven terms in parliament — it’s time to end the era of the career MP

Seven terms. This isn’t a historical footnote about some postwar European statesman. It isn’t a political biography spanning three different eras. This is the Cypriot parliament of 2026, and the man in question is Zacharias Koulias. Re-elected for a seventh term. His parliamentary career began in 1999, when he entered as a substitute following the resignation of Galanos, and has rolled on, uninterrupted, through 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2021, and now 2026.

When this current term ends in 2031...