Former auditor-general, Odysseas Michaelides announced the creation of his political movement, Alma, (Leap) on Monday, using the slogan, ‘Citizens for Cyprus.’ Alma will contest next year’s parliamentary elections, with a complete ballot card, as well as the 2028 presidential elections, said Michaelides, making it clear that the movement would become a party and occupy the congested, centre-right political space to which Diko, Edek and Dipa currently belong.

The opening declaration, read by Michaelides in front of a few dozen supporters, was a litany of platitudes which was to be expected considering the movement, for now, is not much more than a pretext to get the former audit office boss involved in politics. “Our central objective is the radical re-positioning of the country in order to create a financially prospering, just and dignified society,” he said. Alma wants to create a society that “would be founded on public-minded rationalism and would be in a position to promote people-centred development of the economy, ensuring that everyone lives with dignity, well-being, equality and respect for their rights and aspirations.”

In fact, a lot of Michaelides’ ideas, despite the centre-right label given to the movement, sounded socialist. “For us economic inequality constitutes a problem of justice,” he said, implying that he would make us all economically equal. “We believe in a state that protects the rights to work, dignified pay and social security, secures the fair distribution of national wealth and tax burdens, has mechanisms of social protection…”

All this sounds like an immature undergraduate’s political wish-list – worthy and idealistic but of zero tangible value. Economic inequality has always existed in market economies as this is how growth and prosperity are secured. And what is ‘dignified pay’? Everyone being paid public service salaries? How Alma would achieve this Michaelides failed to say in his declaration. Would he increase taxation, or fix wages to ensure the fair distribution of national wealth?

The declaration read on Monday suggested that Michaelides is politically naïve, indicating that a capable technocrat does not necessarily have the qualities that would make him a successful political leader. Of course he could learn on the job, although it will be difficult, especially for someone who spent his career examining procedures and assessing decisions by state services. Politics are much more than trading in hollow concepts about people-centred development, public-minded rationalism and the creation of a society of dignity.

There is a year to go until the parliamentary elections, when Michaelides will undergo his first political test. Before then, he will have to build a sizeable support base, but he may discover that the popularity he earned as auditor-general cannot be taken for granted. As a party leader he would be competing for votes with at least six other parties, which will not sit back and allow him to take their voters.