University staff say Clerides deliberately stalled bill

By Andrew Adamides

PRESIDENT Glafcos Clerides deliberately held up a bill that would have allowed university administrative staff to vote in yesterday’s elections for a rector, their union president Elena Gregoriou has charged.

Speaking on CyBC radio while the elections were taking place, she said the staff were taking a letter to the Presidential Palace responding to the reasons cited by Clerides in sending back the bill to the House on Wednesday.

Even though the House of Representatives passed the legislation at a special session last Monday, Clerides refused to ratify it, saying that at universities abroad, administrative staff either had no seat on the administrative council that votes for the rector, or made up a much lower proportion of it than was being proposed in Cyprus.

Refuting this, Gregoriou said that in Europe the administrative staff did get to vote for the rector, while in America, the university rector was not an elected position, and this was why the statistics had come out as they had.

She said the big question was who had advised the president on the matter, and why he had chosen this course of action.

In protest, administrative staff went on strike from 12pm to 2pm yesterday, but Gregoriou said no decision had been taken as to any further action. In spite of the fact that they would be unable to affect the outcome of yesterday’s elections, she added, they wouldn’t stop struggling for the right to vote in further elections.

Yesterday’s election was won by former vice-rector Nicos Papamichael, who beat competitor Aris Spanos by 63 votes to 35. He takes over as rector from Miltiades Haholiades, who did not run again for personal reasons.

Papamichael, a lecturer in mathematics and statistics, as well as a university senate and council member, became vice-rector five years ago, at the same time as Haholiades became rector.

The new vice-rector will be Andreas Demetriou, formerly head of applied sciences. A member of the university senate and council, he was the only candidate for the position.

None of the candidates have political affiliations.

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