A THREE-AND-A-HALF year political farce came to an end yesterday when DIKO leader Marios Garoyian announced that his party would be leaving the government alliance. DIKO would no longer perform the role of the “force of stability and responsibility”, which it had been promoting during the parliamentary election campaign.
Speaking after the third meeting in a week, with President Christofias, Garoyian said “it had not been possible to achieve full agreement on the strategy for dealing with the crisis”. In addition to this, “serious differences of evaluation, opinion and approach, in relation to the handling of the Cyprus problem, remained.” DIKO has quite a talent in attributing noble motives to its decisions.
The truth is that DIKO abandoned its alliance with Christofias because it has nothing to gain from it. In order to maintain its access to the spoils of power it would have had to take a share of the blame for the big mess the government has created and appears incapable of cleaning up; it was considered too high a price to pay.
When Garoyian was banking on the votes of AKEL deputies to become House president, he was happy to ignore the “serious differences of evaluation, opinion and approach, in relation to the Cyprus problem”, nor was he bothered about the president’s failure to take any measures for the economy. Once he decided he had nothing to gain, he set conditions for staying in the government that he knew Christofias would never satisfy.
Will this civilised political divorce weaken the president? No, because this was a joke of an alliance. DIKO, despite sharing the spoils of power, behaved like an opposition party, its deputies constantly attacking Christofias’ handling of the Cyprus problem and his refusal to take measures for the economy. When he tried to impose certain tax hikes, DIKO was among the parties which voted against them in the House.
With DIKO gone, the president can focus on appointing a new cabinet, which had been put on hold pending his talks with Garoyian. It might also be a good idea to appoint a head of the secretariat of the EU presidency and new commissioners for competition and personal data.
Much more important, however, is how he will handle this afternoon’s talks with the union bosses, particularly the arrogant and uncompromising PASYDY leader who seems hell-bent on bankrupting the state. Past experience does not allow much room for optimism, but we can only hope that the unfamiliar resolve shown by Christofias in his talks with Garoyian will also be displayed at today’s meeting.
