OPPOSITION DISY chef Nicos Anastassiades yesterday accused the government of lacking vision and strategy that resulted in political, social and economic dead ends.
“Day by day the ‘fair society’ government is turning into the government of unemployment and social despair,” Anastassiades said during a speech at his party’s conference in Nicosia. “This is where we were led by dogmatism and obsessions.”
Regarding the government’s tax package that was rejected by majority vote – including coalition partners DIKO – in parliament, Anastassiades said the government had led itself to isolation and were even ignored by those who cooperated with them.
The proposed hikes in corporate tax and immovable property tax were rejected on Thursday during a fiery debate.
The tax hikes were included in the government’s plans to assist the island’s economic recovery and help stem the growing public deficit.
The DISY chief said the government’s tax bills were designed to collect money from some 69,000 businesses of all sizes, thus hurting private initiative.
Anastassiades referred to the economic recovery after the 1974 Turkish invasion, pointing out that it was private initiative that performed the miracle – not through punishing measures but through encouragement and incentives.
“We will never allow Cypriots to be asking for coupons to feed themselves,” Anastassiades said. “We will never allow changing a system, which helps development, welfare and prosperity.”
He added: “Either they change the way they think, or the people will do it for them.”
Government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said the people would have used coupons if they had allowed DISY – when it was in power – to saddle workers with the burden and support wealth and capital.
“Fortunately the DISY leadership was not allowed to implement its neo-conservative and anti-populist policy in Cyprus,” Stefanou said in a written statement.
The government spokesman said it was these policies that caused the global economic crisis and the social unrest in the world.
“And because the DISY leadership did not change the way they think, the people sent them home,” Stefanou said.
As a parting shot, Stefanou referred to the 500 million pounds (€854 million) wasted on a Russian anti-aircraft missile system, which was never deployed on the island due to pressure from Turkey and other countries and the 50 million pounds (€85 million) spent to set up an airline in Greece that went bust.
