Constantia Miltonos Varda (1916–1993) was a Cypriot lawyer and politician. In 1960 she was elected to the Greek Communal Chamber, jointly becoming the first woman elected to a legislative body in Cyprus alongside Kadriye Hulusi Hacıbulgur, who had been elected to the Turkish Communal Chamber.
Biography Varda was born in Larnaca in 1916.Κωνσταντίνα Βάρδα: Η πρώτη Κύπρια βουλευτής από την Λάρνακα Larnaca Online, 13 September 2022 She attended the Pancypriot Commercial High School in Larnaca, where she was a member of the school hockey team, completing her secondary education in 1933.
After leaving school she began working as a secretary in the law firm of Miltiadis Oikonomakis. While working at the firm, she met Miltiadis Varda who worked at the business next door; the two married in 1944. Oikonomakis was childless and encouraged Constantia to study law. After enrolling at the Middle Temple law school in London, she completed a LL.B course by correspondence, graduating in 1957, becoming the second female lawyer in Cyprus. During the second half of the 1950s she was a member of EOKA, a Greek Cypriot guerilla organisation.Βάρδα Κωνσταντία Polignosi She defended several EOKA fighters in court.
In the 1960 parliamentary elections Varda was a Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) candidate for the Greek Communal Chamber in Nicosia, and was the only woman elected to the Chamber.Thomas W. Adams (1971) AKEL: the Communist Party of Cyprus, p128Legislation of the Year, Volume 2 p289 The Chamber effectively ceased functioning in 1963, and was abolished in 1965.
In 1985 she became president of the Larnaca Bar Association, a position she held until her death in 1993.
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