[2] Among all Cypriot political parties, DIKO claims to be the most loyal follower of the policies of Archbishop Makarios, the founding father of the Republic of Cyprus.

[citation needed] As stated in its founding declaration, the Democratic Party proposes the political philosophy of "social centrism", which constitutes "a total of attributes and values that offer in the state social cohesion, political prospect, improvement of terms of life and development of human culture, that should be shared between the entire population and not only between the privileged teams of the population".

The Movement for Social Democracy (EDEK), together with DIKO, constitute the so-called "space in-between" (ενδιάμεσος χώρος) in Cypriot politics, in that they strongly differentiate themselves from both the right-wing Democratic Rally and the left-wing AKEL.

The party's decision not to field a candidate in the 2013 presidential election and to back conservative leader Nicos Anastasiades instead was controversial amongst members, and contributed to Marios Garoyian's loss of the leadership to Nicolas Papadopoulos later in the year.

[16] During the Seventh European Parliament, the sole DIKO MEP was attached to the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group.