IT APPEARS that the president’s negotiations advisor Toumazos Tselepis cannot open his mouth without provoking a storm of protest by the leaders of all the hard-line parties. Presumably, this is an easy way for the parties to attack the president’s policy on the Cyprus problem without directing their fire at him personally. His main advisor is a much more convenient target, especially for EDEK and DIKO which are part of the government alliance.
The latest uproar was caused by certain remarks Tselepis made, regarding the rotating presidency, in a speech to a meeting of AKEL’s youth wing on Saturday. He spoke about the shifting positions of specific politicians, who had reportedly lambasted the ‘presidential council’, included in the Annan plan, but were now behaving as if they supported it in order to slam the rotating presidency with weighted voting that Christofias had agreed to.
What followed, was that everyone opposed to a settlement perched themselves on the moral high ground, as has become the practice, and engaged in rampant pontificating about Tselepis’ “unacceptable” views. EDEK chief Yiannakis Omirou wondered whether the government’s enlightenment campaign about a settlement would consist of “misinformation, derogatory comments and mockery of different views”. DIKO deputy Nicholas Papadopoulos accused Tselepis of resorting to “distortion and lies” and called on Christofias to get rid of him and appoint someone with “knowledge and the necessary qualifications”.
Papadopoulos is perfectly entitled to use derogatory comments about Tselepis but nobody recognises a similar right for the president’s advisor – even if he had mocked politicians, which he had not. None of these self-appointed guardians of correct behaviour took offence when Papadopoulos, a few weeks ago, repeatedly accused Christofas of submitting Denktash’s proposals at the negotiations. This type of mockery and belittling of a political opponent is perfectly acceptable.
The general secretary of the Greens, Ioanna Panayiotou, an inexperienced politician, inadvertently revealed the real issue when responding yesterday to accusations that some politicians were undermining the talks with their criticism. This was not undermining, but citing of “objective truth”, she said. Tselepis had distorted “historical truth” she said. According to Ms Panayiotou, critics of the president always cited the “objective truth” while his advisors distorted the truth and misinformed.
The “objective truth” consists of Antenna TV taking a tiny excerpt of Tselepis’ speech, reporting it out of context and then getting politicians, who were opposed to the talks, to disparage it. This is how the “objective truth” is processed and packaged by TV station bosses and politicians who will say anything in exchange for a few seconds on a television news show.
Opponents of the talks have the right to distort the truth, mock, and belittle their opponents, but when someone from the opposing camp dares to answer back (even in Tselepis’ mild manner) they turn on him like a pack of hungry wolves.
