President Nikos Christodoulides on Sunday refused to be drawn into discussions over whether he will perform a cabinet reshuffle in the aftermath of last month’s parliamentary elections, which saw two of the three parties which support his government lose all their seats in the legislature.

“I have no comment. Reshuffles are not announced, they are executed. When something happens, there will be an announcement made by the presidential palace,” he told reporters during a visit to the Paphos district village of Emba.

Both Dipa and Edek lost all their seats in parliament on May 24, with Christodoulides at the time lamenting both parties’ electoral wipeouts, saying, “Dipa and Edek deserved to be in the new House, and have proven it”.

Between them, the two parties control three ministries, with Labour Minister Marinos Mousiouttas and Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas belonging to Dipa, and Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou belonging to Edek.

Christodoulides’ most recent cabinet reshuffle was carried out in December last year, with a total of six changes being made to cabinet’s makeup.

Michael Damianos was moved from the health ministry to the energy ministry, being replaced by Neophytos Charalambides, Mousiouttas was appointed as labour minister, Costas Fitiris was appointed as justice minister, replacing Marios Hartsiotis, who was demoted to the role of commissioner of the presidency, and Clea Hadjistefanou-Papaellina was appointed as social welfare deputy minister.

Edek had at the time expressed dissatisfaction with the reshuffle, with party leader Nikos Anastasiou having said that “we expected that the president … would see Edek in a better light”, but ruling out the prospect of withdrawing his party’s support for the government.

An earlier statement made by the party said that “Edek’s sincere efforts so far to contribute with proposals and positions to the success of the government’s work and its selfless behaviour seem to have not been appreciated,” and that “the rudimentary information shows a lack of respect for Edek.”

However, in advance of the reshuffle, it had been widely reported that Panayiotou may lose her job after having made comments deemed insensitive in the midst of a wildfire which tore through the Limassol district in July last year and killed two people.

She said of the fire that “the only way we could have prevented [it] was for it not to have started”.

Since then, calls for her to resign have only grown, with House President Annita Demetriou and Akel leader Stefanos Stefanou both having demanded that she be relieved of her duties in light of an ongoing outbreak of foot and mouth disease.

“In such serious cases, society expected a unified coordination of operations and communication, from the agriculture minister and all the competent services … When the management of a crisis leads to such chaos, taking responsibility is not a choice, it is an obligation. That means resignation. Because patience has its limits,” Demetriou said in March.

Stefanou, meanwhile, said that it is “incomprehensible” that Panayiotou remains in post, decrying the “incomprehensible insistence of the president to keep the agriculture minister in her position, despite her blatant inability to adequately respond to the serious issues she was called upon to manage”.

“Whether it is the fires of last summer, the water issue, or now with the foot and mouth crisis, the minister proves to be inferior to her circumstances, and so assuming political responsibility is the only way out of the impasse,” he said.