By Charlie Charalambous
THE PRESIDENTIAL Palace was yesterday accused of trying to destroy the democratic process and annihilate Diko leader Spyros Kyprianou.
The allegations were made by Kyprianou himself at a press conference in which he said Diko supporters were being secretly approached by the palace to vote for President Clerides.
“A large number of our supporters are either summoned to the Presidential Palace or to other offices and asked to change their mind in favour of Clerides.”
Kyprianou added that in some cases pressure was being brought to bear by introducing some kind of “trade-off”.
“The case is that a climate is being created which is unacceptable.”
Continuing his claims of a sinister plot against him and his party, Kyprianou said the whole democratic process was in danger of extinction.
“Apart from the co-ordinated plan to get Clerides elected, there is another co-ordinated plan of political annihilation against me.”
The Diko leader was also in bullish mood answering criticisms from party vice president Dinos Michaelides and expelled rebel candidate Alexis Galanos that Kyprianou should resign as House President because he had gained the position on the back of Disy votes.
“I don’t accept any lessons on democracy from anybody. Not from Michaelides, not from Clerides, not from anybody.”
However, in what is seen as an attempt to outflank party rebels, Kyprianou did say he would call internal party elections just days after the presidential ones were over.
He said he would resign his position and call on the leadership to do likewise so fresh elections could take place.
The Clerides administration also came under attack from Akel, which accused Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides of abusing his office in order to fight the president’s re-election campaign.
The criticism came from Akel spokesman Nicos Katsourides after Cassoulides accused independent candidate George Iacovou of avoiding the issues and having no real policies on defence and the handling of the Cyprus problem.
“I warmly invite candidate George Iacovou finally to explain to the Cypriot people what his policies on the Cyprus problem are,” Cassoulides said yesterday.
The foreign minister said he found it difficult to see how Iacovou could bridge the opposing opinions of his backers Akel and Diko on defence and the national issue.
“(Iacovou) can’t go on denying the fact that there will be a US initiative and he must start avoiding generalisations.”
Yesterday Iacovou moved away from these central issues, and assailed Clerides for his statements on education.
Clerides’ claims that 41 new schools and 30 nurseries had either been built or were under construction during his administration were described as “inaccurate and an affront to educationalists” by his opponent.
Iacovou said that only 20 new schools had been built over the last five years; there was no land appropriated or plans drawn up to construct the other 21, he claimed.
Clerides was also accused of taking the credit for the establishment of new nurseries budgeted for by the previous administration.
Iacovou claimed that in fact the Clerides government was only responsible for five new nurseries.
While attention was focused on the barbed exchanges between the two major presidential camps, New Horizons boss Nicos Koutsou used a press conference yesterday to accuse Galanos of hijacking his policies.
“There is a trend by Mr Galanos to adopt many of our policies and we’ve seen him claiming our positions as his own, soon after we’ve made them public,” said Koutsou.
