Lets hope people have more vision than their leader

Sir,
Assuming that the English translation of President Papadopoulos’ ‘address to the nation’ on CyBC last night was correct, I am left with the conclusion that he has not read the same plan that I have.

He kept talking about the dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus – not once did he mention the future as the United Republic of Cyprus. His speech was at best ill-informed, at worst very misleading. He either has not grasped the ramifications of the plan in its entirety or set out to deliberately misinform the public on something which will have the widest ranging implications for the future of this country.

If the former, I suggest he study the ‘easy-to-understand’ version of the plan which is available in Greek, Turkish and English (www.cyprusdecides.org) and was written by people who have nothing to gain or lose from whichever way the vote goes.
If the latter, he better merits the ‘traitor’ label so beloved of the ‘No’ lobby and will have the dubious honour of going down in history as the man who was responsible for the permanent partition of the island.

While I accept the personal difficulties inherent in demoting oneself to being President only of the Greek Cypriot Constituent State of the United Cyprus Republic, I’m sure this played no part in our President’s plea for a ‘No’ vote.

As he said, it’s up to the people to decide. I nurture the hope that they have more vision than our leader.

R. Charalambous
Nicosia

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