Our View: Our Republic serves the few at the expense of the many

Cyprus marked the 61st anniversary of the Cyprus Republic on Friday with the customary military parade and the familiar assertions about the Republic being the biggest safeguard for the survival of the Greek Cypriots. President Anastasiades and rest of the political leadership paid tribute to all those who gave up their lives for freedom, fighting colonial rule, defending the state against the coup and putting up resistance to the Turkish invasion.

October 1st is a day of celebration, even if the Republic that was established in 1960 was considered by many a betrayal of the Eoka struggle whose objective was Cyprus’ union with Greece. There was also great resentment among the Greek Cypriots that the new Republic was a partnership state with the Turkish Cypriots, causing great tension that led to its collapse three years after its establishment. Each side has its own explanation for the collapse, though that is a matter for historians.

While marking independence day with celebrations is a national duty, it also gives rise to excessive complacency about our state, which is not really to serve the interest of its citizens. This uncritical attitude towards our state suits the politicians and the parties that have treated it as their ownership, not to mention those employed by it who have turned it into their lifetime benefactor.

As a result of this complacency, nobody questions the excessive powers enjoyed by the president of the Republic ever since 1963, when the law of necessity came into play allowing whoever was elected to operate without any checks and balances. This cannot be good for a democracy, but nobody has ever questioned or challenged it for fear of being accused of undermining the Republic, the safeguard for our survival. Abuses of the state go unchecked, as the government of the day routinely distributes the spoils of power among its own while also giving a small share to the political parties. In other countries, such practices are known as corruption, but in the Republic, they are business as usual.

It is a state that has been ruthlessly exploited by its unionised employees who swallow up more than a third of the annual expenditure in wages, pensions and bonuses at the expense of all other citizens, as little money is left for providing support to those genuinely in need. And to add insult to injury businesses that create the wealth of this country and pay the wages of this privileged labour force not only get lousy service from state offices but have countless bureaucratic obstacles placed in the way of their entrepreneurship.

It is a state that prevents genuine foreign investment with its arcane bureaucratic rules, but for years offered citizenships to people willing to buy overpriced properties because it benefited a clique of professionals including members of the government. The Republic was embarrassed internationally when Al Jazeera used undercover reporters to expose what was going on, while the European Commission has also taken action against Cyprus.

All these things are consistently ignored even though they would make everyone genuinely proud of the Republic, not just on October 1, if they were fixed and the state treated all its citizens equally, if it helped rather than hindered business and allocated funds to support the members of society genuinely in need instead of prioritising the economic well-being of its privileged employees.

It was good to hear a possible presidential candidate, announcing he was considering running for the 2023 presidential elections, present the creation of an ‘honest state’ as his main vision. And nobody could disagree with his assertion that “an honest state is our right,” which could only be secured by ending the lack of transparency, lack of accountability, mismanagement and corruption.

Unfortunately, politicians and parties do not seem remotely interested in dealing with this aspect of the state, which fosters inequality among citizens by taking care of the few. As for the rest of us, we are expected to be grateful that the Republic is the biggest safeguard for our long-term survival and ignore that it treats us differently from the privileged class made up of politicians, state officials and so-called public employees. Is it any wonder that the members of this class are the strongest opponents of a Cyprus settlement that would lead to power-sharing and end their monopolisation of state benefits?

The threat of a settlement has receded, but this is no excuse for not repairing a state that has been letting down the majority of its citizens for most of its existence. Then everyone could indeed show the same devotion and commitment to that Republic that our politicians say we should and wholeheartedly join in the October 1 celebrations.