Lillikas to run Tassos election campaign

PRESIDENT Tassos Papadopoulos yesterday appointed former foreign minister and AKEL member Georgios Lillikas to run his re-election campaign ahead of the February 2008 presidential elections.

According to a press release, Lillikas was appointed head of campaign staff in agreement with the parties that support Papadopoulos’ re-election: DIKO, EDEK and the European Party.

Parliamentary spokesman for the European Party, Riccos Erotocritou, said his party had no problems working with Lillikas. “He was a successful foreign minister, was and is a man who has the political stature to disagree and state his opinion loud and clear,” he said. Erotocritou went on to compare Lillikas’ political life with that of members of his own party who created a splinter party from DISY when they too disagreed with their party’s policies over the Cyprus problem, in particular, support for the Annan Plan.

DIKO leader Marios Karoyan said Lillikas was part of a wider group that would pool their knowledge and experience to get Papadopoulos re-elected next February.

Opposition party, DISY, who are fronting MEP Yannakis Cassoulides for the elections, had this to say through spokesman Harris Georgiades: “It doesn’t concern us at all if certain political parties will now be taking orders from Mr Lillikas.”

Meanwhile, no sound from the AKEL camp over the appointment. The communist party have high hopes of putting House President Demetris Christofias at the helm in February. The first step towards the Presidential Palace was taken last July when AKEL left the tripartite government alliance. Lillikas, no stranger to controversy, withdrew from Cabinet as an AKEL minister only to confirm two months later that he would be supporting Papadopoulos’ re-election, which set AKEL’s oilfields alight. The acrimonious split drew much fire from both sides as they traded parting shots in the glare of the media spotlight. It is the second time Lillikas changes sides in his political life. He entered the political scene as former president Georgios Vassiliou’s man, only to later move to AKEL. Now he is charged with coordinating the incumbent president’s campaign.

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.