CYPRIOT citizens have always shown a high degree of tolerance to government blunders, slap-dash policies and shabby practices. This is what they have come to expect from our self-serving politicians, rarely complaining and too often accepting, with a laugh or shrug of the shoulders, implausible explanations for government incompetence. As a result of these public attitudes, governments have got away with glaring acts of incompetence and corruption.
Last Monday’s killer blast put an end to this unbelievable tolerance as people realised that the inadequacy and shoddiness of our rulers cost lives. Thirteen men, three of them still in their teens, were killed as a direct result of incompetence, indecision, irresponsibility and sheer stupidity at different levels of government, all justified by the president’s ideological prejudices. It was not only the tolerance of incompetence that vanished on Monday, but also what little trust there was in President Christofias and his bungling administration.
The disaster, which also destroyed 50 per cent of the country’s power production capability, was a very costly wake-up call. It finally dawned on people that Christofias is an inadequate president, perfectly capable of leading the country into the abyss through his indecision, inaction and ideological fixations. Our economy is just one step from requiring a bailout thanks to his indecision, fuelled by his fear of taking any unpopular measures that would anger the unions.
People, quite clearly, recognised the similarities of how we arrived at Monday’s disaster and the course being followed by the economy, which is also heading inexorably towards a devastating explosion that would affect everyone. In the case of the 98 containers with gunpowder, Christofias decided to keep them here, turning down offers by other countries to take them from Cyprus, because he did not want to alienate Iran, from where the containers were sent, or Syria which was the final destination. Politically he has greater affinity with totalitarian Arab regimes than countries of the reviled West which had offered to take the entire cargo.
The containers were moved to Mari and forgotten. During the two-and-a-half years they were kept there, meetings were held to discuss what should be done about them but nothing was done because this ‘temporary’ solution would keep the Syrians and Iranians happy. The warnings, by the Auditor-General, the National Guard top brass and the naval commander were ignored and even after the explosions took place no action was taken, with tragic results.
The handling of the deteriorating state of public finances has been exactly the same. For more than two years now, public finances have been on a slippery path and warnings for structural reforms that would reduce the bloated public wage-bill have been completely ignored by Christofias, because he did not want to let down the unions. His communist beliefs did not allow him to take measures aimed against public sector workers. He has done nothing, despite the repeated downgrades of our economy and the countless warnings from the Central Bank Governor, the IMF, the EU and an assortment of respected Cypriots economists.
His inaction continued even after it became obvious that the government could not go to the international markets for its borrowing requirement and had to raise funds locally, taking liquidity out of the market. The yield of government bonds is now at eight per cent, the level at which Greece, Ireland and Portugal needed a bailout. And still no action was taken. The economy will not explode, like the containers, but it will collapse. There might not be fatalities but the effects on people’s lives would make the daily power cuts a minor irritant by comparison.
People are aware of this, which is why they are demonstrating outside the presidential palace every night and insist they would carry on doing so until Christofias resigns. They are rightly angry about the incompetence and negligence that led to the death of 13 people and hold the president directly responsible. But they also realise that all the problems facing the economy have been handled with the same degree of incompetence and irresponsibility by the president and that we could soon be facing another disaster of the government’s making.
The nightly protests outside the presidential palace are unlikely to force Christofias to step down – he was democratically elected – but they would serve as a constant reminder that many citizens have no trust or confidence in his leadership.
