Our View: The disconnect between government’s rhetoric and its actions persists

In the end, the cabinet reshuffle, which had dominated the news all last week and caused a lot of negative press for the president, took place earlier than anyone expected. Four ministers and two deputy ministers will be replaced, one of whom vacated his post by tendering his resignation last Friday. There was also an appointment to a newly created deputy ministry of European Affairs.

President Nikos Christodoulides had left himself with no choice after revealing plans of a reshuffle in a newspaper interview nine days ago without being asked, thus fuelling endless media speculation about what he would do. Names of ministers destined for the chop, appeared in media reports, forcing Christodoulides to appease his ministers in front of the cameras before Thursday’s cabinet meeting.

This did not stop the speculation, and deputy minister of renovations and research, Philippos Hadjizacharias – tipped for the chop – submitted his resignation on Friday. The negative write-ups about the president’s amateurish handling of the matter continued and the only way to stop them was by carrying out a reshuffle. So, after just 10 months in office, he was happy to concede that five of the people he had chosen for ministerial posts were not up to the job, something that reflects badly on him as well.

Aware of the damage caused to his image by all this, the president tried to change the narrative, with the government spokesman focusing on Monday on how the new ministers were chosen. The appointments were not products of horse-trading with the parties, declared Konstantinos Letymbiotis, insisting the president ruled out the imposition of people by the parties. He was not very convincing considering the new health minister is vice president of Diko, the new defence minister belongs to Dipa and the new agriculture minister was head of the Edek press office, until the day she was appointed a commissioner last March. The new justice minister, meanwhile, has close links to the Limassol bishopric.

Letymbiotis also informed us that the cabinet is made up of people with political background, but also “technocratic knowledge in relation to the portfolio they would undertake”. What technocratic knowledge of the health portfolio does someone who has worked as a lawyer all his professional life have? And what technocratic knowledge of the agriculture portfolio does a person who has worked for a party have?

This is not to say that these people would not make excellent ministers. Strong administrative and management skills are probably more important than technocratic knowledge in relation to the portfolio for someone to be a good minister. It is only Christodoulides that has made technocratic knowledge a requirement for his ministers, a requirement that he has ignored for most appointments. In the case of the health minister he got rid of someone with technocratic knowledge of health and appointed someone that was a lawyer and had none.

The disconnect between government’s rhetoric and its actions persists.