By Patroclos
OUR EXTREMISTS did not do anywhere near as well in the European elections as those of similar bent in other EU member-countries. On the contrary, our extremists, with the possible exception of the Alliance of Lillikas, which was standing for the first time and there were no earlier results to compare with, got a good hammering last Sunday.
I should point out here that ours were not the traditional type of extremists like France’s National Front, Britain’s UKIP or Germany’s National Democratic Party. They are all pro-European, their extremism being primarily Cyprob-related, but for each with a unique twist.
For instance EDEK’s is related to its superior morality and ethics which touched sainthood during the campaign, boosted by the inclusion of the holier than thou, tree-hugging, preacher, Perdikis. Lillikas, is an extremist demagogue, who did pretty well considering, he was a one-man show masquerading as an alliance.
DIKO were unable to make any capital of their extreme, but idealistic, power hunger, paying the cost of leaving the government and no longer being able to provide the rusfeti that its highly-principled supporters considered their inalienable right.
The happiest of the extremist parties must have been AKEL. The communists, despite bankrupting the country, still took 27 per cent of the vote. It was eight percentage points lower than they had received in 2009, but this was hardly adequate punishment for what they had done to the country.
THE BIGGEST loser of the elections was Ethnarch Junior, whose far-sighted leadership reduced his party’s share of the vote by 25 per cent since the last elections. He may have made proud people of DIKO proud again but not proud enough to bother going to the polling stations and vote for the party.
How wrong the immature Junior was to think the proud people of DIKO would have applauded his decision to quit the government over a trifle like the joint declaration. Out of the government, the party could not offer Dikheads the rusfeti that ensured their loyalty and made them proud of DIKO.
It goes without saying that the piss-poor result of just under 11 per cent, was not the fault of Junior. The party executive office met on Friday to study the election fiasco and issued an announcement late in the evening to explain what had gone wrong.
The announcement censured party activists for their failure to participate in the election campaign and help the party rally support. It also blamed party officials who had taken public positions that were completely out of sync with the views of the party.
The biggest culprit, according to the announcement, was Prez Nik for the “intense, and at times petty-political and unethical polemic he directed at DIKO.”
With Big Bad Al and the foreign conspirators that always shaft Kyproulla out of the picture, DIKO was forced to find a local guilty party, as nothing is ever the Dikheads fault.
GAROYIAN groupie Athina Kyriakidou did not blame Nik or the foreigners for the results but the party leadership and the late Ethnarch’s apostle, Chrysis Pantelides, who is also an advisor of Junior.
She felt the fact that Pantelides, ordained an Ethnarchic apostle by the Papadop family to spread the Tassos gospel, was a representative of Lillikas in the presidential elections confused Dikheads who ended up voting for Lillikas last Sunday. Athina, quite clearly, has no illusions about the intelligence of the proud people of DIKO.
She also fired a salvo at Junior and the apostle for doing much less than her to rally the proud, but confused Dikheads during the campaign.
The election result had one negative for the rest of us. DIKO’s MEP Antigone Papadopoulou lost her seat, which means she will be back in Kyproulla. Her defeat was not without its silver lining – her seat was won by the squeaky-voiced, bash-patriot Costas Mavrides, who will now wage his uncompromising battle against the Annan plan in Brussels.
OUR SECOND Xena warrior princess of the European parliament, Dr Eleni Theocharous, not only kept her seat but also received the most votes cast on Sunday, just shy of 58,000. Second was Akel’s Takis Hadjigeorgiou with 40,000, while in DISY her closest rival, Stylianides, received 24,000 fewer votes than her.
It is one of the great mysteries how such an insufferably, self-regarding, self-promoting, self-righteous, crazily ambitious and humourless person could be the most popular candidate. And she was standing for DISY, a party that is supposed to shun the bash-patriotic nonsense the good doctor churns out at every opportunity.
I suppose that in a country in which AKEL still receives 27 per cent of the vote it should be no surprise that the unlikeable warrior princess was the most popular candidate.
THE ELECTIONS also showed the true nature of Lillikas’ misleadingly titled Alliance of Citizens. This is no Alliance of Citizens, it is an Alliance of Lillikas, with Lillikas, for Lillikas, exactly like the Perdikis Party.
The Alliance’s website featured only statements and speeches made by the party’s great leader, completely ignoring the five extras brought in to make up the ballot paper numbers and feature on the party’s election poster as Yiorkos’ disciples. In this alliance of citizens there always was just one citizen.
The election was a personal triumph for him as it opened the doors of the national council to him. He announced that his alliance with himself will make proposals to prez Nik, “so that the US would prove in practice what it declares about (Cyprus being) a strategic partner.”
The US might have fooled the rest of us with the talk us being a strategic partner, but not Lillikas whose proposals will expose Biden’s and Kerry’s Machiavellian lies and enable Kyproulla to fall back into the loving arms of Mother Russia.
SPEAKING of Mother Russia, Moscow wasted no time in sending over its deputy minister of foreign affairs Alexey Meshkov to try to limit any damage done to our countries’ relations by the Biden visit. It was a very low-key visit, even though Meshkov had a brief meeting with Prez Nik, after which very little of note was said.
Meshkov said the meeting confirmed the “excellent relations” between the two countries and announced that “we are going forward.” He also told hacks, as a reminder of the how helpful Russia could be to Kyproulla, that “we want to send more Russian tourists to Cyprus,” which seemed a bit strange.
Does the Putin government tell Russians where they should go on holiday? I hope Lillikas would think of some proposals so that Moscow would have to prove in practice what it declares.
AFTER the Bank of Cyprus chose a long-haired, narcissist, who looked more like an ageing rock star than a banker as its chairman, Hellenic Bank decided to go a step further. Last week it chose as its chairman a young woman who looks more like bohemian chick than a banker.
I refer to Irena Georgiades, who was appointed Public Service Reform Commissioner just a couple of months ago, after the resignation of Emanuella. She had previously been working as an advisor of the finance minister (no relation) Harris Georgiades and before that she was his parliamentary assistant.
So now both remaining Cypriot banks will be chaired by people that had nothing to do with banking, although Irena, being a chartered accountant by profession is better qualified for the post than the BoC’s happy bunny. Do not know if such a glamour girl would have been appointed chairperson had the priests still been in control of Hellenic (the Church’s shareholding was drastically diluted), but at least the bank has remained true to its tradition of giving top posts to people who have nothing to do with banking.
Outgoing chairman Andreas Panayiotou, who held to post for nine years, was a retired civil servant and its CEO Makis Keravnos was a bureaucrat at a state agency before being made finance minister by the Ethnarch.
PREZ NIK was accused of being behind Georgiadou’s appointment, but our mole at the palace informs us that nothing could be further from the truth. Apparently when Georgiadou announced the news to Nik he gave her the customary one raised eyebrow look which signifies disapproval and disappointment.
He also looks a bit stupid – unable to choose the right people – considering he only appointed her commissioner a couple of months ago and will now have to look for another, the third in the space of a few months. Georgiadou could not be dissuaded because the money she was offered was too much to turn down. Who could say ‘no’ to 150 grand a year for what is essentially a part-time job? Most of us would work 24/7 for that kind of dough.
If he is having trouble finding someone I would like to formally apply for the post as it has been my life’s dream to reform and deform the public service. Mr Prez, there is no better man for the post. I will even join DIKO if that is what it takes to get the job that would give me the pleasure of being horrible and mean to Hadjiklamouris to his face, as part of my daily work.
THE HAPPY Bunny and his fellow BoC directors were given major ticking off by Central Bank Governor Chrystalla Georghadji in the last couple of days over their refusal to go ahead with a new issue of share capital that would bolster the ailing bank’s Core Tier 1 Capital.
As our establishment reported a few weeks ago, CEO John Hourican had found foreign investors prepared to buy up the issue, estimated in the region of €800 million, but his plan is opposed by the board which appears united on the matter. Russian directors are against it because the issue would dilute their shareholding while the Cypriot directors, led by the ‘komotis’, are afraid they would lose their seats on the board with the arrival of new shareholders.
Georghadhi, reportedly, told them to cut out the crap and unless they found that sort of money from other sources within the next few weeks to go ahead with the share issue.
THE NUMBER of smokers has gone up as a result of the recession, it was reported this week. As a smoker, I have to say that I would have expected a small ‘thank-you’ from the authorities for the big contribution, we nicotine-addicts have been making to state revenue at a time when tax income is sliding.
We are helping our state meet its fiscal targets, by putting our health at risk, which I think, is quite a heroic sacrifice. But come to think of it, we are helping the state pay the obscenely high wages and pensions of the public parasites. I cannot think of a better reason for giving up.
DEEP PURPLE played in the north as planned last weekend and the pseudo-concert was a super success according to reports by the pseudo-press, which reported an audience of 35,000, including Dervis Eroglu.
Eroglu never struck me as a heavy metal fan. I just could not see him playing air guitar or moving his body to the sound of Smoke on the Water. Eroglu had invited Nik to the pseudo-concert, but our man politely declined as he considers Deep Purple a bunch of has-beens who cannot get any gigs in internationally recognised countries.
His view was not shared by everyone on our side, the pseudo-press reporting that many Greek Cypriots attended.
PRINTING deadlines have not allowed us to write anything about yesterday afternoon’s gay pride parade in Nicosia, but we have sent a reporter to the event to take down the names of all those participating. We will publish a list of all the participants’ names in next week’s Coffeeshop because people have a right to know which of their countrymen support gay pride. We will also publish a list of all the head-banging Greek Cypriot traitors who attended the Deep Purple pseudo concert, in the presence of Eroglu.