By Martin Hellicar
PRESIDENT Clerides and his ministers went on the war path against Diko leader Spyros Kyprianou and his chosen presidential candidate, George Iacovou, yesterday.
Both Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides and Health Minister Christos Solomis called press conferences in order to defend Clerides against criticism from Kyprianou and Iacovou, while Government spokesman Manolis Christofides launched a no-holds barred attack on the Diko leader.
The spark that got the pre-election pot bubbling over was Kyprianou’s claim – during a Diko conference on Monday evening – that Clerides was surrounded by a “mini junta”.
Kyprianou responded to yesterday’s barrage from the government by claiming it was members of Clerides’s party, Disy, who had in fact coined the term “mini junta” to describe the President’s closest aides.
Clerides himself tried to laugh off Kyprianou’s accusations.
“I stand before you surrounded by my mini junta,” he joked, pointing to secretary to the president Pantelis Kouros and other associates of his who were attending a Disy meeting in Nicosia.
He added that Kyprianou had promised the Clerides aides would keep their posts if Disy gave its backing to the Diko chief for the February presidentials.
Diko abandoned the coalition with Disy which got Clerides elected in 1993 after Clerides decided to seek re-election. After considering a number of other candidacies, Diko are now backing Akel favourite Iacovou for the elections. Akel have consistently charged Disy and Clerides with harbouring supporters of the Greek military junta, whose 1974 coup against President Makarios provided the spark for the Turkish invasion.
Christofides’ response to Kyprianou’s resurrection of the junta claims was not as good-humoured as the President’s: “These were highly insulting statements by the House president and leader of the Diko party against members of the government, and they are totally unacceptable.”
“It would be easy for me to repeat the characterisations attached to Kyprianou at various times by his own close associates, but I am a citizen and Kyprianou was President for a decade and I owe him respect. Today, I am forced to express to him my repugnance,” Christofides told his daily press briefing.
The spokesman dismissed suggestions that Kyprianou’s statements had been tongue-in-cheek.
For his part, Cassoulides backed up the President’s claim that Kyprianou had – when he was still seeking Disy’s support for the elections – expressed full confidence in what he was now describing as the “mini junta”.
“To many close associates of Clerides, myself included, Kyprianou repeatedly said that if Clerides withdrew in favour of his own candidacy he would utilise them fully,” Cassoulides said.
Liberals leader and presidential candidate Nicos Rolandis added his voice to those slamming Kyprianou. He said Kyprianou had been happy to take advantage of the people he was now calling a “mini-junta” while in coalition government with Disy.
“Kyprianou worked with this mini junta for years, taking advantage of their servile attitude towards him to secure five junta-ministries, one junta- House Presidency and 100 memberships of Junta-committees and thousands of junta-jobs,” Rolandis said.
Kyprianou responded to the attacks by saying he was only quoting what he had heard Clerides’s supporters saying.
“I am not claiming I patented the term, I just heard it from various Disy members and repeated it,” he said. He declined to comment on the allegations that he had been happy to work with this “mini junta”.
“I do not want to fan the flames,” he said.
The Health Minister concentrated on responding to Iacovou’s claims that the Clerides government had tried to “bury” the long-awaited national health plan.
Solomis said the plan, following “exhaustive” work by the government, had received the blessing of every member of the cabinet and was now “at the doors of the House” awaiting approval.
He also said the Clerides government had poured 68 per cent more cash into health than the previous government. He presented figures putting Health Ministry expenditure for the five years from 1988 to 1992 at just over £242 million and the next five years at £407 million. Solomis promised further spending increases in the sector should Clerides be re-elected.
Cassoulides’s defence of the Clerides years focused on foreign policy in an attempt to quash Iacovou’s charges of “week-kneed” government. He listed the island’s EU accession talks, the “internationalisation” of the Cyprus problem and the Common Defence Dogma pact with Greece as Clerides’s outstanding achievements.
“If Clerides is not re-elected, then everything, including EU accession and the Cyprus problem, would have to begin from scratch,” Cassoulides claimed.
Iacovou added his voice to the fray by responding tersely to Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades describing him as akin to a “student council president.”
“Mr Anastassiades is very provocative, and because he is used to dealing with persons of an advanced age it is only natural that he should refer to me as a youngster,” he said, in reference to the fact that Clerides, at 79, is 20 years his senior. “Such characterisations do not bother me,” Iacovou said.
Meanwhile, there were growing indications of dissent within Diko ranks over the party executive committee decision to back Iacovou. Party vice-chairman and former Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides spoke openly for the first time about his dissatisfaction with the decision.
Michaelides, who was notable by his absence from a Diko rally to endorse Iacovou’s candidacy on Monday evening, said Diko should “even at the eleventh hour” opt instead for Kyprianou or another “unifying” candidacy from within the party.
“The candidacy of the party chairman, endorsed triumphantly by the whole party, should not have been sidelined by the executive committee,” he said. He refused to comment on his absence from Monday’s party meeting, but Kyprianou did.
“I do not believe that, even if he disagrees, a party vice-chairman can be absent from such events, but this is a matter for later. I have no further comment at this time,” Kyprianou said.
A number of other Diko grandees, including former Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas, have made no secret of their disaffection with Iacovou. Former Diko House president Alexis Galanos has announced his own candidacy.
In an apparent effort to woo these Diko dissenters, both Cassoulides and Christofides described the former government alliance between Diko and Disy as productive and successful.
Christofides went further and promised that, if elected, Clerides would aim to form a government of national unity, choosing “able” cabinet members regardless of party orientation.
