Presidential candidate Nikos Christodoulides’ campaign office in Limassol was vandalised overnight, his team said on Saturday.
Pictures of the damage done to the building show a broken window from a rock that was thrown, and graffiti on a campaign poster that read: “Get out of our neighbourhood.”
The campaign office said they would make an official complaint to the police about the incident.
Christodoulides has received negative press recently over allegedly inciting a former aide to create fake social media accounts to slander political opponents.
His campaign and he himself have kept quiet over the incident.
However, he did go on record to say during a campaign event in Limassol earlier this week that he has been victim of an organised attempt to slander and derail him.
Earlier in the week, former campaign aide, Manolis Kyriacou, said he was told to make fake social media accounts to promote Christodoulides’ candidacy and hurl abuse at rival candidates.
On Monday, Kyriacou told Politis in an interview that Christodoulides was actively campaigning on the sly while still serving as foreign minister. He would meet privately with cadres from Diko and Edek to discuss his presidential prospects, while all the time publicly professing that he was a dedicated Disy man and had not decided whether he would stand.
In August, Christodoulides was also the subject of controversy, as the foreign ministry confirmed that during the financial crisis in 2013, he continued to receive a foreign posting allowance for months after the former diplomat was relocated to the island from Brussels.
During his last year at the foreign ministry, Christodoulides served as a spokesperson of the Cyprus presidency of the council of the European Union in Brussels.
However, in March that year, he was sent back to Cyprus but continued to receive a monthly €4,860 salary as a general non-taxable cost of living allowance for being posted abroad for another four months.
Standing by his opponent, Andreas Mavroyiannis, also a candidate for president, condemned the vandalism on Christodoulides campaign building.
He said that anything done in the ‘dark’ is undemocratic and has no place in presidential campaigns.
“We repeat that, we will walk in the light, with ethics and respect for all citizens and our opponents, based on positions and arguments, far from any attempt to polarize,” he said.
Ruling Disy also condemned the vandalism. The party said they were sure the authorities would investigate the incident immediately and the culprits would be caught.
The initiative ‘Famagusta for Cyprus’ also issued an announcement to condemn the vandalism on the building.
They said a prerequisite for democracy is allowing for the existence of different opinions.
Political disagreements, they said are expressed through healthy dialogue and not through violence or threats.
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