The never-ending festival of political lunacy
By Loucas Charalambous

WE ARE GOING to the polls today. Some, who live in countries with a normal political life, would go as far as to say that elections were a ‘celebration of democracy’. In a normal country, elections would have meaning, purpose and consequences. But in this country of political lunacy, what significance could elections have? What significance could elections have in a country in which political illiteracy reigns supreme? What is the point of elections in a country where the overwhelming majority of those who are eligible to vote, as well as the majority of the candidates, are politically immature?

Every collective human activity in this world, including elections, has meaning and purpose only when it takes place in the right environment. I am talking about an environment, in which the existing conditions satisfy certain basic requirements, rendering such an activity productive and meaningful. Do we have such an environment in Cyprus? Do we have an adequate number of mature and serious politicians? Do we have politically mature citizens? Do the conditions, in which such a procedure could operate correctly and effectively, exist?

Holding elections in Cyprus is like staging a Sophocles tragedy for people brought up on afternoon soap operas. What can you expect from elections in which 80 per cent of the candidates are of the calibre of Nicos Pittokopitis and Zacharias Koulias and political lunacy is a never-ending festival

Is it possible to expect a serious outcome from a procedure in which the EDEK chief is a star player? When the Annan plan was submitted, Omirou recruited several senior-ranking EDEK members and staged a plot within the party in order to prevent Dr Lyssarides from taking a public stand against the plan which would have undermined the opportunity for a settlement.

Three months later, he was hysterically campaigning for the plan’s rejection, something which he is doing with increased vigour today. During this election campaign he had the audacity to call on all party leaders to commit publicly to blocking the return of the ‘cursed’ plan! But do not be surprised to see the EDEK of Omirou, who is an equal of President Papadopoulos in the incoherence stakes, elect four or more deputies today.
What can you really expect from an election process the voters of which are, politically, still in the Stone Age? What kind of judgment do Cypriots have, considering that in the 40 years of the Republic’s 46-year life it voted as presidents, men who were the cause of its national problem? Three years ago, these people elected as their president, the second in command of a paramilitary organisation that dragged the country into bloody conflict by setting Greek schools on fire and then blaming the Turks. So what could we expect of them today?

Let us not forget that we are the people who, for 40 years elected as deputy Dr Lyssarides, the champion of political incoherence and sloganeering. More recently we raised our level by electing Dr Matsakis deputy – he received the most votes at one point – and then Euro MP.
What can you expect of the election when just two years ago we voted for the indefinite stay in Cyprus of two divisions of the Turkish army, because we had become comfortable with partition? For elections to have an impact, you need politically mature voters. Under the current circumstances, holding elections in Cyprus is not a celebration of democracy, but a festival of political lunacy.

Cyprus Mail 21/05/006