Peyia election campaign

Sir,

We write to express our dismay at the anonymous paid advert in the Sunday Mail on December 10, purporting to have come from “Concerned Residents of Peyia” and which raises potential language difficulties as an issue in the forthcoming elections.

The person or persons who paid for it must be really worried about our Mayor, Mr Neophytos Akoursiotis, and the Independents in the Peyia elections to write such misleading information, which also risks driving a wedge between the community over the elections. Was this their objective?

We have since taken the trouble to check out the facts directly with the people who are most attacked in the advertisement, and who have decided not to dignify this tripe with a reply, including our Mayor. Mr Akoursiotis informs us that he has, as a pragmatist and a man of foresight, merely suggested to government that if a European non-fluent in Greek was elected, then translation facilities might be a good idea, not just for Council meetings, which he hopes will be open to the public, but as part of his wider approach to integration and better understanding between all citizens of Peyia.

Let us remember that when he became Mayor, Mr Akoursiotis had the decency to stop the discrimination whereby non Cypriots paid three times as much as Cypriots for their rubbish collection, a practice that had been in place for over 10 years. Would this practice have happened with open government and translations of decisions?

Regarding this supposed hot issue of language, in fact and not stated in this advert for obvious misleading reasons, three out of five of the Independents are in any case fluent in Greek (two are Greek Cypriots), with the others fast improving and all will do their best to work with any Mayor selected by the voters.

We would therefore like to challenge these anonymous “Concerned Residents of Peyia” to join us at Yeronissos Hotel and Restaurant in Ayios Georgios between 3 and 6pm today, Wednesday December 13, when citizens have been invited by our Mayor to discuss local issues like real grown-ups i.e. free speech with right of reply.

Convolutions like this advert which are divisive, dishonest and xenophobic deserve no attention in the debate for a forward looking Peyia community. We are all citizens now resident here in Peyia for whatever reason, so please let us look for things that unite us rather than looking for ways to divide us.

Elizabeth and Denis O’Hare, Peyia

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.