By Patroclos
WHEN Ethnarch Junior was rushed into the operating theatre three weeks ago, it appears that surgeons did not only remove his appendix. They must have also removed the last few political scruples that had been hiding in his system and were preventing him pursuing his presidential ambitions with the requisite ruthlessness.
It did not take him long after leaving the hospital, without his appendix and free of political scruples, to get to work on achieving his objective. First he re-posted his bash-patriotic credentials and reminded everyone that he was as hard-line as his late papa, by launching a vitriolic attack on Prez Nik’s handling of the Cyprob.
Junior’s outburst followed the National Council meeting of the previous week and would have been ignored by everyone, as he had said nothing remotely interesting or new, had it not been for Nik’s inability to leave any criticism unanswered. The prez issued a written statement, which, despite its patronising tone, gave the impression that he took Junior’s rant seriously enough to respond to it.
How can you take the prince of Strakka seriously when he complains that the Cyprob procedure is heading for deadlock? Deadlock is what Junior always wanted and Nik is on the brink of achieving it. The possibility of a settlement, which the prince was so paranoid about, is as remote now as when his papa was president so why is he attacking Nik who seems to be following the Ethnarchic mantra of talks for the sake of talks?
Would the prince have been happier and publicly congratulated Nik if the procedure was progressing and the two sides were agreeing on issues, instead of heading for deadlock?
THE REVELATION of his deadlock-phobia may have been related to his courtship of AKEL which seems to have blossomed into a full-blown romance over the last 10 days or so.
Junior has realised that he would need AKEL votes, if he is to have a chance of becoming president in the next elections so he has started pandering to the commies, for whom he expressed only disgust and contempt in the previous three years. With his last few political scruples now surgically removed, he can act with the unbridled opportunism that was in all his predecessors’ DNA.
Since the 1970s AKEL and DIKO have gone through as many marriages and divorces as Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. DIKO has jumped into bed with other partners when they were apart, but AKEL has always waited patiently for DIKO to return. We had thought that after the last acrimonious divorce in 2011 and DIKO’s falling into the arms of DISY the on-off marriage was over for good. We were wrong.
It is back on now, as the meeting between Junior and Andros 10 days ago emphatically confirmed. There was love in the air, the two leaders putting the past behind them and renewing their vows. Romantics may have applauded, but for our establishment this is a marriage made in hell which invariably turns the country into a living hell. Suffice to say this disastrous marriage gave birth to both the Tassos and Tof presidencies, not to mention the 10 years of Spy Kyp.
YOU HAVE to give some credit to Junior for rebuilding the relationship after all the abuse and invective he had personally heaped on the commies and their sainted president. He could see the commies were very vulnerable and isolated after the calamitous Tof reign and were ready to jump into bed with whomever as much as winked at them.
He winked and they obliged, although they also needed to find an excuse to sell the proposed marriage to their supporters after the cruelty and contempt with which the nasty Junior had treated them in the last three years. After their kiss-and-make-up meeting, Andros and Junior announced they would forge a unite opposition front, as there was “big scope for co-operation” both in parliament and outside.
The issue that would justify the marriage and help Junior’s drive for the presidency was the memorandum of understanding imposed by the Troika. AKEK had been opposed to most of its provisions – even those negotiated by Tof – from the beginning, but in his brief incarnation as a responsible politician the prince had supported it.
But to win a place in Akelite hearts, he has decided that the memorandum was no good and needed to be re-negotiated. And the two parties agreed that they would no longer give in to the government’s blackmail regarding memorandum bills.
Junior has been banging on in the last week about the need to re-negotiate the MoU, in a way that would help development and improve the lives of ordinary people. The prince’s concern about the ordinary people was truly admirable and is guaranteed to win over caring Akelites.
THE DEMAND for the re-negotiation of the MoU is one of those hollow slogans our politicians love, identical to the demand for the re-positioning of the Cyprob. Everyone knows it will never happen, but it sounds good to the ordinary people that are suckers for false hopes.
The only difference with the re-positioning of the Cyprob, which has been demanded for the last 20 years, the calls to re-negotiate the MoU have an expiry date – 2016 when the assistance programme ends. And with presidential elections two years later, what would Junior do to keep the marriage with AKEL alive? He could start a campaign for the re-nationalisation of the privatised SGOs such as CyTA and EAC which would be peachy with the comrades.
He will cross that bridge when he reaches it. For now, all he has to do is keep calling for the re-negotiation of the MoU and keep showing AKEL that he will remain faithful and true. He seized the opportunity to do this on Tuesday when he had a meeting with DISY chief Averof Neophytou, after which it was announced that a big gulf separated the two parties on the economy and the Cyprob.
And Averof would never help Junior become president, because he has ambitions as well, but this was not mentioned.
THE BANK of Cyprus board finally bowed to the pressure of the Central Bank governor and the finance minister and decided on a capital issue of between €500m and €1bn at its Thursday board meeting, which lasted a staggering 10 hours.
The decision was a victory for the CEO John Hourican who had proposed a capital issue several months ago but encountered strong opposition from the members of the board. A month ago the Central Bank governor Chrystalla Georghadji stepped in, inviting the directors to a meeting and urging them to proceed with the share issue. The government also lent its support to Crystal, Harris Georgiades publicly advising the BoC to raise capital.
The Russian directors, who would see their shareholding, obtained in compensation for the haircut of their deposits, diluted, were also present for Thursday’s crunch board meeting. In the end they did not object to the issue, but there were strong disagreements over the price of the new shares, which caused the meeting to last 10 hours.
The Cypriot directors, who represented Laiki and ETYK, opposed the idea of a large number of shares at low price as this would substantially dilute their shareholding, arguing for the issue of a smaller number of shares at a higher price. The only problem was that the issue might not be successful if the share price was high.
Another fear of the Cypriots was that the dilution of the shareholding could have led to their losing their seats on the board. And what would be the point of saving the bank if they had to sacrifice their seats to achieve this?
THERE will be another meeting of the board in the next 10 days to finalise everything. One thing finalised, according to press reports, was that the bank would hire two deputy CEOs – one Cypriot and one foreign.
For some time, the happy bunny chairman had wanted to hire a deputy CEO, in order to curtail Hourican’s powers and show him that there would be someone ready to replace him if he failed to toe the line. The man chosen by the recruitment firm was interviewed by the CEO who was not impressed and refused to sanction the appointment.
On Thursday, the happy bunny insisted that a deputy CEO was hired and he was backed by most directors. Hourican said he would only agreed to this if another deputy CEO were to be recruited from abroad. So the BoC will now appoint two deputy CEOs, a Cypriot and a foreigner, it does not need, at a total cost of about 700 grand a year, all because the happy bunny wanted to clip Hourican’s wings.
THIS WAS not a good week for another company chairman – Tony Antoniou the head honcho Cyprus Airways. Antoniou had a meeting with Finance Minister Georgiades to answer accusations that he was making the bankrupt airline pay his personal expenses such as a speeding fine and a service for his car.
He was also accused of a awarding a small contract, in the region of 80 grand without first asking for tenders. It defied belief that such a fuss was made over Antoniou claiming expenses he was not entitled to (he claimed these would have been deducted from his fee), considering the large-scale plundering that was taking place at the airline in the past.
The perm secretary of the finance ministry was asked to investigate the allegation against Tony who was not a happy bunny over the shabby treatment by the government after he had saved the airline from bankruptcy – at least for now. But it seems some people will never forgive his decision to sell the Heathrow time slot and force them to fly to Stansted. It is payback time.
SOMEONE had to read great significance into Greece’s progress in the World Cup and draw important lessons from it for our loser politicians. This is a standard reaction to any national sporting success, journalists seizing the opportunity to ask why our politicians do not emulate our sportsmen.
Phil’s political correspondent, Costas Venizelos, took up the issue after Greece advanced to the knockout stages of the World Cup by defeating Ivory Coast. “We all needed this victory to regain our self-confidence as a nation, as Hellenism,” he wrote, bemoaning the fact that our politicians had ignored all the things that made the Greek national side successful such as team-work, the right preparation, a winning strategy and tactics.
“The big ask is to produce results. The ingredients that make up the recipe of the national side’s success are not found in what is defined as the political system and political personnel,” he wrote and explained what he meant. “Togetherness is absent, strategy is unknown and tactics are displayed in response to developments. Their game is defensive. And it is obvious that the biggest probability with these (defensive) tactics is that you will concede a goal.”
This is where his parallel went badly wrong, indicating that Venizelos’ knowledge of football is nowhere near as deep as his knowledge of politics. The Greek national side owes its success exclusively to its ultra-defensive tactics, which might not be very entertaining but get results.
It won Euro 2004 thanks to its defensive game and not through attack which Venizelos claimed “is the only way to win”. In the case of Greece it is quite clearly not, but who cares.