REGULARS will know that our establishment was never a fan of Odysseas Michaelides, not even in the days when his popularity was sky-high, when the media celebrated him like a political messiah and assorted politicians treated his word as gospel.
Our establishment could not abide with his self-righteousness, self-regard, self-promotion, self-glorification and the non-stop marketing of his moral superiority, by himself, his subordinates and his media cheerleaders.
After he was deposed by the judges and set up a political party, things have not been going very well for him as he has been collecting more and more enemies. Apart from the presidential palace trolls who challenge his every word daily on X, he also has to contend with attacks from the palace’s new allies in Disy.
He has become such a punching bag, I almost felt some sympathy for him, but then I read his sanctimonious responses to his critics and realised that this guy deserves nobody’s sympathy.
Earlier in the week he was attacked by Disy for taking decisions as auditor-general that incurred additional costs to the taxpayer and the Paphos-Polis road was cited as an example. His patronising tone, in a post directed at Disy leader Annita Demetriou, was classic Ody.
“The response of the audit office to your corrupt government, was given at the time. Here it is to freshen your memory… I wonder is there no end to your downward slide?”
IT MADE you wonder whether the people in charge of Disy have lost their marbles. That Odysseas’ meddling often incurred higher costs and delayed the completion of projects there is no doubt.
Disy, however, is in no position to take the moral high ground and criticise Ody, who had exposed the mega-scandal of the Vasiliko LNG terminal, in which Nik the First awarded the project without competitive tenders to a Chinese company that had zero experience in building an LNG terminal.
The contract has since been terminated and nobody knows when it will be completed as the dispute with the contractor is at arbitration court. The cost to the taxpayer of this Disy fiasco could be anything between €200 to €300 hundred million and we would still have no terminal. Ody, it should be said, had sounded alarm bells at the time.
The Vasiliko scam will cost the taxpayer a great deal more money than the termination of the contract of the Paphos-Polis highway, which, ultimately, was a decision of the government. I keep forgetting that Annita’s Disy has defected to the presidential palace and is duty-bound to defend the government.
THE MOST hilarious attack on Ody was by Ethnarch Junior who had been his biggest fan just a few years ago. He was so devoted to Ody, that Diko was refusing voting through the state budget, unless the Anastasiades government handed over the golden passport files to the then auditor-general.
Ody had been demanding the handing over of the files for months. The stand-off lasted weeks, but the dispute was eventually resolved and the budget was passed through parliament with Diko votes.
Now, Junior has turned against his hero, the man for whom he was prepared to block the state budget, presumably because he fears Diko is losing votes to Ody’s Alma. Junior has been demanding that Ody comes clean about his position on the Cyprob and, believe it or not, the 2004 Annan Plan.
Junior wanted to know if Alma agreed with the stance of his daddy on the Annan Plan referendum 22 years ago (he even made a video to pose this absurd question), the stand that said ‘no’ to the dissolution of the Republic (and the return of Famagusta and Morphou to the Greek Cypriots which he did not mention in his video).
At least now we know that the main issue of the parliamentary elections is the Annan Plan.
MY SINCERE congratulations to the wife of the president Mrs Philippa Karsera Christodoulidou for securing promotion to the rank of ambassador. I read in Politis that some of her colleagues, who had seniority (there were 23), but failed to get one of the four ambassadorial positions, were considering appealing against the decision of the public service commission.
In the same report I also read that seniority is no longer the main criterion for promotion – candidates also have to sit exams and Karsera Christodoulidou’s paper was among the top three. I just hope, now that she has become an ambassador, she will not be posted in some faraway land by the devious mandarins of the foreign ministry, leaving the poor old Prez to run the country without her support.
I WAS distraught with the idea that I will never again hear the lovely voice of Eleni Vretou first thing in the morning. She had been a presenter on the Dromologio show on Rik radio for some 30 years but reached retirement age last month and left the job.
Apart from her gentle, mainland Greece voice, she was a fantastically sharp radio journalist, always asking smart questions and never allowing a guest to avoid the issue. Last year the other excellent, female presenter of Dromologio, Pola Sponta also retired.
The show has now become an exclusively male preserve and is unlistenable. Rik should not force its best people to quit when they reach retirement age.
HUNDREDS of Larnacans showed up at the roundabout outside the town’s port on Wednesday afternoon to protest about the delays in the development of the marina and the port.
The problem has always been the development of the port, for which there are no takers (the previous contractor fell out with the government two years ago and the contract was terminated) and the Cyprus Port Authority was given the job of preparing a plan for it.
Larnacans want a port of a ‘tourist character’ so they can build restaurants and cafes in it but refuse to accept that such an enterprise is unviable. They have vetoed the idea of a port for industrial purposes, the only viable option, because nobody will visit cafes and restaurants in an industrial port.
We are expected to pay for a port of ‘tourist character’ that will lose millions every year so Larancans can build more cafes, bars and restaurants by the sea.
PEOPLE who are constantly complaining about our deputies and the possibility of Fidias, who tied the knot on Thursday, being elected, should realise that things are not as bad as they seem.
I read in The Spectator last month that “Labour MP Samantha Niblett has launched a campaign to make 2026 the ‘summer of sex’, calling for ‘more open, inclusive, lifelong sex education’. Niblett wants to have a ‘national conversation’ about pleasure, including the benefits of masturbation and said she intends to ‘talk about sex all summer’.”
This is not all, according to The Spectator. Niblett and a partner are “planning events in Westminster, including one in which they intend to bring sex toys into parliament.”
THE NUMBER of election billboards are increasing, but you feel sorry for the candidates who are paying all that money to show their face and blue suit, without really being able to say anything about what they have to offer.
Instead you get silly slogans like, ‘we can, much better; we continue together; honestly, effectively; continue with actions.’ What is the likelihood of anyone saying I will vote for number 8 on the Disy ballot because he said ‘we can, much better’?
One smart Disy candidate, decided to go for the women’s vote, with a longer than usual slogan. “Zero tolerance to violence against women. Silence is not an option.”
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