I DO NOT know if the hacks of CyBC have instructions from their new comrade chairman, an AKEL apparatchik, to make the comrade presidente’s declarations the main story on every news bulletin on Trito radio, but in the last week he must have got more mentions than Colonel Gaddafi gets on Libyan state radio.
Every morning, Trito’s main story consisted of some banal statement made by comrade presidente in the Big Apple, where he had gone to address the UN General Assembly. When he is in New York the comrade gets a major ego-boost and suffers serious delusions of grandeur. But even though he thinks he is a great statesman he still speaks with the sophistication of a village mukhtar.
His sound-bite, “I am not a plassie (salesman) and I would never sell our country”, perfectly illustrated the point. Despite not being a plassie, he still boasted that he had made “some very generous offers” to the Turkish Cypriots – 20 per cent discount on all electrical appliances they bought in shops in the free areas – which should be appreciated by Turkey and the UN.
Comrade plassie’s activities in the Big Apple consisted of telling people what they should do. He even made a speech giving advice to world leaders on how they should deal with climate change. Sadly, Kyproulla’s environmental policy was “restricted by the Turkish military occupation.” He also urged the world to follow an energy policy based on low CO2 emissions, just like we do in Kyproulla.
DURING his New York meetings, he also had a chance to tell the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon (there was no chemical reaction at their meeting this year) when and where he should arrange to meet him and Talat. The meeting could not take place in New York because he was there as a head of state whereas Talat was not.
“I explained to the Secretary General with great objectivity, without fear, but with passion, what is happening at the negotiating table.”
He also had a meeting with Turkish PM Erdogan, during an official lunch, and told him that “Turkey has the key for the Cyprus settlement.” He also told Erdogan that Talat should be helped by Turkey “to change his tune”.
It was always a case of Tofias telling everyone what should happen and what they should do. He was like some emperor issuing instructions. This was because Christofias and his entourage were our only source of information – they were briefing the hacks about the conversations comrade presidente was having.
If the people who met Christofias responded to his diktats, it was not reported. The impression was that at all the meetings he spoke while the other person listened and said nothing.
HE EVEN raised the issue of Alexander Downer with the UN Secretary-General he said. He was pandering to the Cyprus media’s and politicians’ calls for the replacement of Downer on the grounds that he was pro-Turkish and therefore unsuitable to be mediator.
The anti-Downer campaign climaxed on Wednesday with a pathetically lame story in Simerini claiming that big Al was working for a consultancy firm which co-operated with a company which had business interests in Turkey, which meant there was a conflict of interest.
Comrade presidente said, after his meeting with Ban, “I spoke about the matter (Downer), in my way, insisting that the people of the UN have as a main duty the backing of the implementation of the resolutions of the UN. Well, I think the meaning of this position is crystal clear.”
The only crystal clear meaning was that he did not raise an issue about Big Al.
THE HIGHLIGHT of his visit was his meeting with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. As they were preparing to speak to the cameras, the presidente turned round and asked Miliband rhetorically “Who has the key?”
Miliband, unaware of our claim about Ankara holding the key to a settlement, replied, in all seriousness: “It must be the head of security.” He obviously thought our man was talking about the key to the UN building.
AN INDOOR stadium, an extra-long avenue in the capital and a couple of state schools appear to be the least a deceased president of Kyproulla could expect to be named after him.
I know Archbishop Makarios III also had a hospital, a major stadium, a satellite centre, an open air theatre, countless schools and long avenues in every town named after him – not to mention the statues – but that was before we learnt to exercise restraint.
And to be fair, when he passed away he was the first and only president the Republic had had so he was bound to give his name to a host of buildings, avenues and schools. In fact, avenues were being named after him even before he died – Nicosia’s Makarios III Avenue for instance. But that was before we learnt to exercise restraint.
This Makarios practice, unfortunately, cannot be repeated because there are at least two former presidents and the current one who are waiting to give their names to a couple of avenues and an indoor stadium, so we are now forced to impose a quota on the number of streets and buildings that could be used to honour a president.
While we will have plenty of avenues to re-name after our presidents, we may be running out of indoor stadiums, which is a concern for municipal authorities. It seems a bit belittling to give the name of a president to municipal swimming pool.
THE BIG debate was sparked by Tuesday’s decision by a Strovolos Municipality committee to rename Athalassa Avenue as Tassos Papadopoulos Avenue, despite the opposition of the mayor Savvas Eliophotou.
Other alternatives were offered by the mayor, who wanted to preserve Athalassa Avenue, but DIKO’s devoted councillors, who had submitted the proposal, would not budge. They also had the support of DISY councilors, who must have been closet Tassos fans.
Eliophotou counter-proposed that Tassos’ name could be given to the road that was scheduled to be built in two or three years, linking Strovolos Ave to the area of the Apollonion Hospital, but the DIKO councilors rejected the idea for two reasons.
First the construction of the road would not be ready for years and, more importantly, the road would not be an avenue.
And you can’t have Tassos getting a new road that would not even be an avenue, when Spy Kyp got an existing avenue (RIK) of respectable length, renamed after him. If the name of a long avenue was renamed in honour of Spy, then Tassos should be honoured on the same scale (they each have an indoor stadium named after them).
For the sake of consistency and equal treatment, the House should approve regulations on how we honour our former presidents – two terms in office should entitle a president to an avenue longer than a mile, a big indoor stadium, a couple of village schools and half a dozen streets in residential areas. One term should get you an avenue of less than a mile and small indoor stadium, one village school…
MAYOR Eliophotou tried to introduce a note of sanity and modernity to the municipality proceedings, describing the proposal to rename Athalassa Ave an “antiquated practice”. The name change of roads caused confusion and practical problems for residents, he explained.
He did not mean to be disrespectful to the late Ethnarch “whom I honoured in practice, when he was alive, until the last moment.” This was why he counter-proposed giving his name to the Strovolos Municipal Theatre, which is a very modern practice. Not just modern, it is ahead of its time because they haven’t thought of it in Pyongyang yet.
The theatre option is a good one as we are running out of indoor stadiums and there are still three presidents that would need to be honoured at some point in the future.
WE DO NOT know what is happening with the Kikis Cultural Centre. Has the government given the go ahead or has our friend Charilaos man
aged to get its construction postponed indefinitely? If Kikis wants to ensure that the project would go ahead, he could announce that it would be named the Christofias Culture Centre.
MONEYBAGS Bishop of Kykkos Nikiforos was outraged when he went to the University of Cyprus’ auditorium for an event to mark the memory of Yiannos Kranidiotis and was told to sit in the third row. Seeing his boss, the Archbishop, in the front row, reserved for the A-class guests, was more than his humility could bear and he walked out.
He waited outside the auditorium for the guests of honour – Giorgos Papandreou and comrade presidente – to arrive. He then triumphantly re-entered the auditorium with them and walked to the front. I am happy to report that he found an empty chair in the front row to seat himself, flouting the protocol. A man with Nikiforos’ moollah and holiness should always be treated as an A-class guest.
I would have thought the university’s employees would be smart enough to know this.
I AM SURPRISED our good friend Charilaos has not thought of begging Bishop Nikiforos for a generous contribution to our empty state coffers. In exchange he could offer him a front-row seat at all official functions, including the annual military parade.
This could be the government’s Plan B which has yet to be enforced, even though we are getting closer. This week’s announcement that the state plans to collect VAT returns from 81 of the biggest companies every month instead of every three, is a reflection of how well our people-friendly government’s bankruptcy policies have been going. It is only a matter of time before it meets its target of European Commission supervision.
It could not have chosen a better time to introduce its measure – we are in the depths of recession, most businesses are short of cash and our government has decided to further reduce their liquidity by collecting VAT every month.
Businesses could go under because the government will not dare take the only rational step to improve public finances – cut all public servants wages by 10 per cent. This would also contribute to the creation of a fairer society.
NOT EVERYONE has been affected by the recession. The publisher of Phileleftheros Nicos Pattichis had no trouble coming up with a sum in excess of €3million to buy out a shareholder with a 20 per cent stake in the company. This latest purchase would take his holding in the company to about 80 per cent.
This was the final stake the Michalakis Hadjiefthymiou family, which originally had 40 per cent of the Phil shares, had. The 20 per cent that was held by the late Michalakis’ son had been sold to Pattichis a couple of years ago for a smaller amount.
ABOVE is a wedding invitation published in a newspaper a couple of weeks ago, on behalf of the father of the groom. As head of the Limassol Fire Service he knew a lot of people, but not for him the de-personalised open invitation that has become the standard practice. He invited the following:
“All my dear friends and relatives in Paphos, Nicosia and Limassol. Associates, fellow-worker firemen, Policemen, Reservist Commandos, Civil Defence rescue workers, employees of the Forestry Department and Game Fund, employees of the Ports Authority, dock-workers and port workers, staff of Customs and the National Guard, medical and paramedical staff of Limassol Hospital, workers of Limassol Municipality and the communities of Limassol District, and in particular the Community Councils, Architects, Civil Engineers, the employees of EAC, of the Moni and Vassiliko power stations, of factories, hotels and restaurants and all those whom I trained or trained with for more than 30 years and unfortunately could not contact, because of my heavy workload during the summer months….”
THERE have been developments in the saga of the top civil servant who offered to open a position for his ex-wife at a government office abroad in order for the court to set a lower alimony payment for him.
A letter had been written to his minister asking if it was possible for the position to be given to the ex-wife. The director of the minister’s office replied to the ex-wife’s lawyers, in general terms, informing them that the government opened positions only when there was a specific need to do so. It all depended on the requirements of the service.
What the letter skillfully avoided mentioning was that even if a position was opened, there was no guarantee that it would be given to the ex-wife of a civil servant, even if he were as senior as a perm rep.
The position would have to be advertised and as rusfeti never takes place because it is a criminal offence, there was no guarantee the ex-wife, who incidentally cannot write Greek (a requirement for any government job), would be hired.
