THE REFUGEE mothers, who wanted the state to recognise their right to pass on their refugee status to their children, were partly satisfied by President Christofias, earlier this week.
After a meeting with representatives of the Movement of Refugee and Displaced Mothers at the presidential palace on Tuesday, it was announced the government would give assistance worth €10.6 million to youths whose mothers were refugees.
This was a 180-degree turn by the president who had refused to sign a law approved by the legislature last year giving refugee status to children whose mother was a refugee; the law allows only refugee fathers to pass this status to their offspring.
The law was referred to the Supreme Court, which ruled, earlier this year that the legislature did not have the authority to pass legislation that envisaged additional state spending. At the time, the government had argued it could not afford an increase in the number of people with refugee status.
But with parliamentary elections only a few weeks away, the president decided to give something to the refugee mothers in what was a crude attempt to buy votes for AKEL.
In this respect he was no different from the political parties which had passed the law, knowing very well that it would be ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. And while Christofias took a responsible stance last year, in the end he allowed his populist mentality to get the better of him.
The whole issue is indicative of the vote-buying populism that blights our political system. This is why not a single politician has dared to take a rational stand and mention the obvious – that refugee status should not be a hereditary right. By what logic could people born after 1974 be regarded as refugees? And if the real refugees were helped by the state – given land or houses – there is no rational justification for helping their children and grandchildren as well.
The state should be offering housing in refugee estates, government land or low-interest housing loans to low-income families instead of to people with refugee ID cards, who hold down well-paid positions.
It makes no sense whatsoever to give state assistance to people with refugee status instead of to people in real need. If Christofias was so keen to spend €10 million it may as well have been distributed among the poor.
But in Cyprus the state usually offers assistance not to those who deserve it but to those who make the noisiest demands.
