Great media coverage was given to the departure of an obscure member of Disy, Evgenios Hamboullas, who had served as a party deputy for Famagusta district from 2014 to 2016, taking a seat vacated midway through the term of the legislature. He has never been directly elected to parliament, indicating that his popularity and influence among the party voters was rather limited.

Yet the announcement of his departure received extensive coverage and secured him invitations to appear on TV shows and explain his decision. The reason for his departure was “the gradual distancing of the party from its ideological roots – from national dignity, transparency and honesty towards the people and in particular the young generation.”  In his TV appearances, he spoke of an “existential problem” and a “left leaning” policy at Disy.

What is the party’s existential problem? That it has not followed the extreme nationalism of Elam, which an attention-seeking member like Hamboullas appears to be a supporter of? He attended one of Elam’s anti-immigration marches in February and was photographed with another Disy defector that joined the ultra-nationalists – Marios Pelekanos who had served as spokesman of the Anastasiades government.

Disy should not even have issued a response to an opportunistic member’s departure. It does not have to justify its policies and principles to someone who has decided he does not belong to the party. In fact, departures of members who believe their views are more aligned with those of Elam should be welcome by the party, which should be building up its profile as a modern, European centre-right party that champions the free market, entrepreneurship and liberal thinking.

It should leave the extreme nationalism of the 1950s to Elam, which embraces the economic populism of Akel on most issues. Disy should be the party that stands in the way of this economic populism that is supported by all the parties and invariably results in a malfunctioning economy. It correctly took a stand against the government’s bill for the unfreezing hundreds of public service posts and warned about the dangers of constantly growing public payroll.

The party was mocked by government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis who reminded that Disy supported the unfreezing of posts by the Anastasiades government. But the party is now under new leadership and is perfectly entitled to change policies on decisions it believes are harmful to the economy. It needs to become the voice of economic rationality in a country in which the squandering of public money on populist causes has become the norm.

It can leave Elam, Diko, Edek, Dipa and Akel to applaud the bloating of the public service and wasting of the taxpayer’s money by the Christodoulides government. We need at least one party to call the government to account for its profligacy.