Our View: If it ain’t broke new president should not try to fix it

The inauguration ceremony for the eighth president of the republic will take place on Tuesday morning at the legislature, after which Nikos Christodoulides will head to the presidential palace where he and the first lady will be greeted by the outgoing presidential couple. The eagerly-awaited line-up of the council of ministers will have been announced by then and the new administration will assume its official duties, as is the tradition, on March 1.

This will be the honeymoon period for the new administration, which will be given the leeway to get to grips with its responsibilities, set priorities and establish its modus operandi. It is the period when opposition parties hold their fire, media keep an open mind and most people are, quite rightly, in ‘wait and see’ mode, giving the new government the chance to acclimatise and take control. A good start, usually, sets the markers for what is to follow and could determine how the government will be viewed for the rest of its term, which is why it is important for the new president to try to make a good start.

President-elect Christodoulides spoke about his ideas of making government more effective in an interview on CyBC television on Thursday night, saying the under-secretary to the president will have the exclusive responsibility for the implementation of the government plans by monitoring and coordinating action. “We have decisions, action plans, declarations, but I have noticed that we lag behind in their implementation.” All governments have been guilty of this, and it would be a major achievement if the new president succeeds in increasing the implementation rate of decisions, as this would also require changing the culture of the civil service.

Having spent much of his career in the civil service, the new president may be better placed to find ways of overcoming the endemic indecisiveness and slowness that plagues the state machinery. Making government more effective and responsive, although easier said than done, would be a commendable undertaking. Christodoulides will have the time to focus his attention on making government work better as he has not inherited any large crisis that would take up most of his time as was the fate of his predecessor, who in 2013 had to deal with the meltdown of the economy and collapsing banking sector.

In fact, Christodoulides takes over an economy in pretty good shape, with positive economic indicators, a fully recovered banking sector, the tourism industry returning to pre-pandemic levels and more foreign businesses setting up offices in Cyprus. The country has also adapted impressively to the loss of Russian business, because of sanctions, the services and tourism sectors successfully targeting European markets. In 2022 the growth rate was 5.8 per cent and for this year it is estimated to reach 1.6 per cent, twice as high as the forecast eurozone average.

All the new government has to do is continue its predecessor’s policies, perhaps tweak them a bit, without undertaking any major changes. The American saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” should be the government’s guiding principle on the economy, at least for now. When listing the challenges facing the new government, Christodoulides mentions “the national challenges but also the economy, society and educational issues.”

The economy is not a challenge in the sense that it requires a new approach and thinking, and the president should resist the calls for measures for dealing with what has come to be known as “expensiveness.” During the campaign he acknowledged that this was a problem that needed to be tackled but the reality is that there are no quick-fix remedies for inflation. It will run its course, while the subsidy of electricity bills, which offers some relief to households, has already been extended until the end of April. It is also important for the government to keep the unions at arm’s length, even though this might be a little difficult considering that the Sek union federation publicly backed the Christodoulides candidacy.

On the national challenge, also known as the Cyprus problem, which is also linked to energy plans, the president-elect has made all the right noises but he will soon find out that more than verbal assurances of commitment to bizonal bicommunal federation will be needed from him to put the peace process back on track. Neither the UN nor the EU, which he wants to have a greater involvement in the process, would undertake an initiative without real prospects of success. And would the political parties that backed his election be supportive if he makes the commitments necessary for a new process?

He can worry about that when the time comes. For now, he should take advantage of the honeymoon period, set his government’s priorities and follow that adage that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”