THE RESULT of the referendum and the ensuing declarations by our political parties constitute a triumphant confirmation of what this column has maintained on numerous occasions: that the main features of our political life are paranoia and lunacy; that our state is the most ridiculous and bizarre in the world; that our political leadership is a lamentable joke; and that Greek Cypriots have the leaders they deserve. The weird, tragicomic events of the last few weeks will, no doubt, inspire many future columns.
Before the referendum, President Papadopoulos and other champions of the ‘no’ vote drove us crazy by repeating ad nauseam that the result “must be respected by everyone”. The referendum proved a triumph for the ‘no’ camp. (The triumph of the ‘yes’ camp was the fact that one in four citizens stood firm, unaffected by the paroxysm of rejectionism that swept the country and the revival of the police state mentality of the ’60s). In the end, the only people who respected the result were all we traitors of the ‘yes’ camp. We conceded defeat while we respected the desire of the people to vote for partition. And we shut up.
But what did the ‘no’ camp do? Outrageous. Instead of celebrating their victory and opening champagne bottles because the Cyprus Republic was saved from dissolution, what did they do? Cornered by the barrage of criticism from abroad, the winners decided not to respect the expressed will of the people. Demetris Christofias is chasing after Kofi Annan and other foreign dignitaries, trying to explain to them that the ‘no’ was not really a ‘no’, but a ‘yes’ and begging for a second referendum so the will of the people could be changed. The president, meanwhile, is running round trying to explain the “resounding no” and asking for a new round of negotiations in order to overturn the verdict of the people. Is this behaviour not schizophrenic and undemocratic?
But what about the AKEL decision on the referendum? An old member of the party, Kostas Sophocleous, convincingly explained how Christofias indulged in some amateur theatrics in order to reverse the Central Committee’s initial intention to adopt a ‘yes’ vote. Such a decision would have been carried by 80 votes for and 20 against. Instead, Christofias instructed some 10 of his lap-dogs to make speeches against the plan and thus create the false impression that the Committee was divided. He was thus able to impose the nondescript, second decision by the Political Bureau – the ‘no’ vote that would allegedly ‘cement’ the ‘yes’.
All this, in order to avoid a rift with the president, as a ‘yes’ would have forced AKEL to withdraw from the government and be deprived of enjoying the benefits of power. In the end, of course, this lunatic decision did not ‘cement’ the ‘yes’, but ensured a ‘no’ of reinforced steel. I apologise to lunatics, because I am sure that a conference of Cyprus’ lunatics, would have produced a more rational decision about the referendum than the AKEL leadership.
Now, we are being lambasted and pilloried for our schizophrenic behaviour. All the senior officials of the EU are furious because we cheated them. You see, they did not heed this column’s warning, which had repeatedly pointed out that it would be a huge mistake for the most respected grouping of states in the world to give membership to a joke of a state like ours.
