ONE MIGHT be forgiven for not noticing the election campaigns currently underway ahead of next month’s presidential election.
This may be one of the most challenging periods in the Cyprus Republic’s short history but the main candidates in the race appear to be adopting a somewhat ‘light’ approach to the campaign, focusing less on solid policy positions and more on taking wild and off-key pot shots at each other.
Perhaps focus on the second public debate scheduled for last night between the three main contenders- Nicos Anastasiades, Stavros Malas and Giorgos Lillikas- had something to do with the low-calibre exchanges during the day.
The morning started with the EDEK-backed Lillikas camp issuing a press release about the outspoken psychiatrist, TV personality and newspaper columnist Yiangos Mikellides.
The good doctor was one of eight people who nominated the DIKO-backed DISY leader Anastasiades as a presidential candidate on January 17.
Mikellides was joined on the day by other notables including popular singer Michalis Hadjiyiannis, Nobel laureate Christophoros Pissarides and the Archbishop’s accountant Yiannos Charilaou.
Lillikas chose instead to use eight unemployed people to nominate him for candidate. The 52-year-old former commerce minister, who along with his wife is worth around €4m, wanted to pass on the message that he truly is a man of the people and is not bound by party allegiances. A quick glance at his CV can confirm the latter.
So, in yesterday’s not-so-fierce election campaigning, the Lillikas team decided to focus on Mikellides because he has been publishing his musings in a column in Politis newspaper for years, taking a sometimes humorous, sometimes brutal eye to Cypriot society.
The Lillikas team decided to select and re-publish excerpts of Mikellides’ columns, some of them dating back to 2006 and pose the question to Anastasiades and his supporter, DIKO leader Marios Garoyian, on whether they agree with what the doctor has written in the last seven years.
In one excerpt from December 2009, Mikellides talks about the return of the late Tassos Papadopoulos into public life but this time through his body which was stolen from its tomb and later found.
In the column, Mikellides describes the former president as a “master of intrigue”.
After the 2008 elections, the columnist said he felt “proud of Cypriot people” for voting Papadopoulos out in the first round of the presidential elections, along with EDEK, EVROKO and the Greens “and all those with nationalist tendencies which were leading Cyprus to a Kosovo-isation and partition”.
In 2006, he slammed those Greek Cypriots who voted ‘no’ in the 2004 Annan plan referendum to protect the value of their properties or their jobs or the status quo, saying they were all traitors to their country “because they sold half of Cyprus to the Turks”.
The Lillikas camp asked the two party leaders to state clearly whether they agree with Mikellides’ views since they chose to include him in the list of eight nominees.
“Is that how they show respect to DIKO members?” asked the Lillikas team.
It remains to be seen whether the Lillikas camp plan on going through with a fine-tooth comb the thoughts and ramblings of Hadjiyiannis, Pissarides and Charilaou over the last seven years.
For its part, AKEL- which has put its weight behind the candidacy of former health minister Malas- focused on a memorial over the weekend for a very controversial figure, general Giorgos Grivas, who has been associated with extreme right-wing elements and actions in Cyprus’ history, particularly with EOKA B whose main aim was to replace Cyprus’ new-found independence after 1960 with union with Greece.
Giorgos Loucaides, AKEL spokesman, said the presence of many DISY representatives at the memorial to honour the founder of EOKA B was insulting and provocative.
Malas’ spokesman, Takis Hadjigeorgiou, found it interesting that two years ago, Anastasiades had chosen to attend the memorial but this year, he was a no-show.
Hadjigeotrgiou questioned whether his absence this time round was an effort not to alienate “the democratic voters of DIKO”.
And finally, DIKO, which seems divided between following the party line and supporting Anastasiades, or backing Lillikas, the former foreign minister in the Papadopoulos government, also released a statement on Lillikas’ efforts to nab DIKO voters.
DIKO questioned why at an election gathering, supposedly organised by DIKO members, Lillikas used the entire speech to attack the DIKO leadership’s decision to back Anastasiades instead of presenting his policies and proposals as a candidate.
Let’s hope last night’s debate had more to offer those following the election race.