ALL HAIL new national saviour Yiannakis Matsis, who has heeded the desperate calls of the expelled DISY deputies and the disgruntled DISY masses, triumphantly returning to the political battlefield from his self-imposed exile to lead them to where it is they want to go.
They haven’t yet decided where they want him to lead them, which is just as well, because Matsis would have trouble leading a starving man to a plate of food. For now, he will focus on undermining the DISY fuhrer and splitting the party he was once leader of in two, even though he insists that he comes as the great unifier.
He has adopted the philosophy and strategy adopted by AKEL in the referendum – in order to cement DISY’s unity (or should we say Disunity), he will split the party in two with a mildly (as opposed to resounding) divisive message. Matsis, the great unifier, will lead the ballot paper of the DISY rebels in next month’s Euro elections.
The rebels have decided to call themselves European Rally (as opposed to Democratic Rally, the official DISY name), which is a bit dishonest, politically, considering that they went completely against European wishes, in opposing a solution based on the A-plan. Should we mention the fact that their main supporters are the hard-line nationalists of DISY, who want to kick the Turks into the sea; not exactly in the spirit of modern European thinking.
Perhaps the rebels are calling themselves European because they wear suits and ties made in Europe, or because they drive European cars? But is this good enough reason to adopt the European label?
THE PROBLEM with the European Rally is that it does not stand for anything different from DISY, now that the referendum is over. The A-plan plan is dead, so its support for a ‘no’ is now meaninglessly obsolete. The rebels’ only raison d’être would seem to be to punish Fuhrer Nice Nik, for supporting a ‘yes’ vote by splitting his party.
This was made obvious by Matsis, who rejected DISY’s invitation, to stand on the party’s Euro election ballot for the sake of unity. Matsis responded by saying that unity would be achieved after the June elections and the party’s split, just like the ‘yes’ vote was cemented after AKEL’s ‘no’ vote in the referendum.
The thing is that the DISY Europeans are united in their opposition of a peace plan that no longer exists, but disagree over what settlement they want. Matsis is a keen supporter of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, Prodromou is a supporter of partition and Erotokritou will accept any solution that gives equal political rights to people with big ears. So what is their political message?
The only thing that unites them is that they all want to take revenge on Nice Nik. The two rebels were expelled from the party for siding with the Ethnarch in the referendum, while the unifying saviour has an old score to settle. It was Nik, with the help of the palazzo mini-junta, who had driven him to resign as DISY leader in the late nineties, and now he has a chance to get his own back.
Under the circumstances, Avenging Rally would have been a more accurate name for the rebel grouping.
THE AVENGING, national saviour, who made a political career primarily thanks to his surname has been used as one of the Ethnarch’s postmen after the referendum, delivering a presidential letter, which explained the reasons for the ‘no’ vote to the Spanish Prime Minister. He was not granted an audience by the PM on his visit, but informed us that he had met the foreign minister.
Avenging Rally has the full support of our two media moguls and self-declared kingmakers, Zeus Hadjicostis (Sigma and Simerini) and Loukis Papaphilippou (Antenna) who were leading ‘no’ campaigners and now want to depose Nik as DISY Fuhrer for his unacceptable stance in the referendum campaign. The fawning coverage being given every day to the members of the Matsis camp by the two magnates’ influential organs leaves no doubt about their intentions.
The Ethnarch, who is now the biggest ally of our home-grown Berlusconis, is also encouraging the Matsis circus, as he would love to see DISY split in two and Nik’s leadership wobbling. He is that sort of guy, as we all know. Even Akelites have been complaining, privately, about the Ethnarch’s meddling in their party affairs. His henchman Nik Cleanthous has been in constant contact with ‘no’ voting comrades encouraging division within the ranks.
THE WORST is quite clearly not over, even though our infallible Ethnarch assured us that it was two weeks ago. If it was, why is the government considering taking legal action against the EU to prevent member countries from establishing direct trade links with the north? And why are there efforts in Brussels to open Tymbou pseudo-airport to direct air links with the outside world?
As for the Yanks, the measures they are discussing as punishment of the Greek Bananiots, will most definitely be declared “hostile acts” by Papa-Dop if they are implemented. These include, the raising of the American flag at US buildings in the north, treating Mehmet Ali Talat as ‘prime minister’ and the development of special ties with the ‘pseudo-plantation’, which will also receive US aid.
The Bush administration, according to an American lobbyist working for Greek Bananiot organisations in the US, feels “real anger” towards Papa-Dop. “I have never seen such anger against a friendly state,” he was quoted as saying by Politis. We fear that the worst for our plantation is nowhere near over and that our infallible Ethnarch got things wrong yet again.
GIVEN the wrath of the Yanks, why has our wise Ethnarch not sent one of his illustrious envoys to Washington to explain the Greek Bananiot ‘no’? Is it because we cannot get anyone in Washington, not even a State Department clerk to agree to see a Cyprus government envoy? He could have given a letter to Mehmet Ali Talat to take to Colin Powell, had he known that it would have been so difficult to communicate with the Bush administration.
Perhaps he decided that the US is not one of the countries that matter and decided not send an envoy. The air fare is quite high as well and we are trying to reduce our fiscal deficit. Last week, he sent Dinos the Incorruptible as his envoy to two countries that really matter – Latvia and Lithuania – to explain our ‘no’ vote. The trip proved very successful, although it was not clear which of the two Baltic states would undertake the next Cyprus peace initiative now that the US has lost interest.
THIS BUSINESS about tourists crossing to the south from the north has got the government’s knickers in a twist. First, the EU ambassador said that EU citizens should not be fined for entering the plantation through an illegal port of entry and crossing south. Our government responded by saying that it was not up to an ambassador to tell it which laws it could to enforce.
There was a law and the government had every right to impose fines. Then it was reported that the ambassador was not expressing his personal view but that of the European Commission. This forced a change in the government’s stance. The Ethnarch declared defiantly, “it is our right” to fine illegal entrants, but added that the authorities would not be doing so at present.
If Tassos had realised that he would be bossed around by EU bureaucrats and told what to do he would have campaigned against EU membership more stridently than he had done against the A-plan.
GOVERNOR of the Central Bank Ttooulis of Avgorou took the unprecedented step of criticising the government’s failure to take any measures to reduce the fiscal deficit earlier in the week. It was unacceptable that the government had done nothing to cut its spending, especially as it had promised the EU to take measures to reduce its deficit. In its first year in power, instead of reducing the public sector wage-bill, it had created an additional 700 jobs, he complained.
How things change. When Tttooulis, as finance minister, was campaigning for the re-election of the old sea-wolf in 1998, he was constantly boasting that the government had spent loads more money that its predecessor. Now he is preaching about the importance of spending cuts – different hat, different beliefs.
His criticism of the government came as a big surprise to those who know how he operates. Ttooulis has learned, in his long and distinguished career in the civil service, that to move up in the world you need to butter up the presidente. There is no way he would have done something to anger Tassos, who is notorious for holding grudges. If he did, Tassos would not renew his contract when his term as Gov came to an end.
The theory is that the Gov made his criticism after receiving the go-ahead from the presidente, in order to prepare the public for the unpopular measures that the government will have to take to reduce its deficit. The comrades at AKEL will not be too happy as they had promised that the government of change would implement ‘people-friendly’ economic policies.
SPENDING cuts might be the reason our presidente has avoided filling the two vacated ministerial posts – finance and communications. He would save 100 grand from the annual public sector wage-bill if he keeps them empty. We would not even notice it, as his ministers do not do anything without his authorisation anyway. If he got rid of Dina and Doros, who are liabilities as well, we would save 200 grand.
Conspiratorial minds claim that he is delaying deliberately because he wants to appoint his protégé and spin doctor George Lillikas foreign minister, but is faced with strong opposition from Commissar Christofias. He is hoping that he will find a way of getting the Commissar to agree but it may take some time.
SPEAKING of the Commissar, he was the guest of honour at the annual lunch given last Sunday by the Society of Friends of Kidney Sufferers. Christofias praised George and Thelma Paraskevaides for their generous financial help in establishing Cyprus’ Kidney Transplant Centre as well as the doctors who had made this a success story.
Health Minister Dina Akkelidou also praised Mr and Mrs P, and noted that the Transplant Centre was as good, if not better, than similar centres in developed countries. According to some of the guests, the comrade commissar looked a bit sheepish when she was referring to the standards of the Centre.
Could this be because when he needed a kidney transplant, he did not go to the Centre, but chose to be operated at a hospital in a developed country?
THE GENEROSITY of Mr Paraskevaides is legendary, as we all know. The latest group to benefit from it, according to coffeeshop gossip, was the ‘no’ campaign, of which one of his offspring was a leading light. This came as a surprise to us considering that the Mr P owned huge areas prime real estate in the occupied territory, for which he would have been handsomely compensated if it was not returned to him.
But would he have received compensation? Not under Annan 5, which stipulated that only individuals would receive compensation for their properties. Property held by companies would receive no compensation under the plan, which was grossly unfair. I do not know if Mr P’s properties in the north were owned by companies, but if I was told I could not have my property back because it was not in my name, I would be mightily pissed off with the UN and their stupid plan.
LAST Sunday, Athens newspaper Ethnos carried a pathetic report claiming that George Vass had negotiated the new status for the British Bases included in the A-plan that extended the territorial waters of the bases 230 miles into sea. This was because Britain wanted to control the gas and oil pipelines that would come from the Caucasus and Iraq and go through the “north-eastern Mediterranean”.
Nobody seems to have told the hack that the bases are on the south of the island, making it very difficult for the pipeline to pass through them.
The hack claimed that Vass had given these rights to Britain because he was involved in commercial transactions with a British company of which Lord Hannay was a director. Needless to say that Vass dismissed the story as complete nonsense. He had never had any business dealings with Hannay and was never involved in the negotiations of the technical/legal provisions of the protocol for the Bases. According to former AG Alecos Markides that job was done by Kyp chief Tasos Tzionis.
Interestingly, Ethnos, during the 1983 presidential elections, had published forged documents claiming that Glafcos Clerides was an agent of the Nazis. The ‘documents’ had been given to it by supporters of his presidential rival Spy Kyp, in Nicosia.
WE MAY be a member of the EU but racism is still alive and well on the plantation. Take the president of AEL football club, Akis Ellinas who was asked what he thought about his side’s black player, Boeka Lissasi, who had been detained by the police in connection with a case of credit card fraud. Ellinas said, “among the white sheep there will be a black one as well.”
But why should football club chairmen be politically correct when even academics at our hotbed of learning are capable of racist sentiments. One senior member of the Physics Department sent out an e-mail to all academics making fun of Kofi Annan’s skin colour, but we cannot repeat what he said here. Cyprus University Rector Stavros Zenios was so annoyed that he banned the circulation of e-mails in open mailing lists.
As Zenios said in his memo, the university had not drafted regulations about the content of e-mails and the responsibility of the sender, and therefore open mailing lists were suspended. I suppose, when academics are incapable of recognising what constitutes racism, they have to be treated like school-kids by the rector, or should I say headmaster.
THE WINDS of EU membership have not yet blown at the Nicosia General Hospital. Two parents visiting the Children’s Cardiological Ward at the Hospital were shocked to get a whiff of cigar smoke in the aisle. One of them turned to the nurse and asked, quite loudly, “Do you allow people to smoke cigars in the children’s ward?” The nurse turned to him and told him to keep his voice down. “One of the doctors likes to smoke a cigar,” she said matter-of-factly. Of course smoke from a cardiologist’s cigar is not that harmful to children suffering from heart ailments.
PRICES keep soaring now that we have become EU members, making us wonder what the benefits of membership actually are? Cars may be cheaper, but the road tax and fuel prices have soared, as has everything else. In the end, the only ones who are better off are those who can live on a diet of whisky and Mars bars. Oh yes, and the Turkish Bananiots who are enjoying all the benefits of membership without any obligations such as harmonisation with EU acquis and obeying the order of Brussels bureaucrats.
