ETHNARCH Junior is going through a rather difficult period as he is having difficulty controlling some of his top dogs who want the party to announce its support for Nik II’s re-election, while he does not want to make any commitment.
It is a rather absurd situation, considering that Nik has been promoting the myth that he will decide whether to seek re-election in 2027. It is a myth that no sane person believes, not even his ministers, as events in the last week showed.
Health Minister and Diko vice president Neophytos Charalambides said on Antenna TV on Wednesday said he considered Diko’s backing for the Prez’s re-election a given. Diko had a Prez of the Republic and was not looking for a candidate for the 2028 election, he added.
The question is how he could emphatically back a man who has not yet decided whether he would stand for re-election. How could Diko’s backing be a given when the candidate does not actually exist? Someone is taking us for a ride.
CHARALAMBIDES’ comments, which were given prominence by the Prez’s cheerleaders at Phil, undermined what his party boss had said a couple of days earlier on the same TV show.
Junior had said the district branches of the party had started meetings and the Diko leadership wanted to hear the views of ordinary members “so we can have a complete picture.” The choice of candidate will be made by the collective organs when the party procedures for the presidential election are completed, said Junior.
Sounding more sensible than usual, Junior said: “The first thing that we need to know is who the possible candidates will be. We do not know whether Mr Christodoulides will be a candidate.”
Does the party vice president know something that he is not sharing with his leader? Is this the reason he has come out so strongly in favour of the phantom candidate?
THE REAL issue is that Junior is mightily pissed off with the Prez, who has been sneakily taking control of the core of Diko. Several leading party members are now closer to the Prez than they are to their party boss.
Phil has even named some the members that enjoy close ties with the Prez and they include Diko’s Paphos deputy Chrysanthos Savvides, the party’s parliamentary spokesman Panikos Leonidou and Larnaca deputy Andreas Pantelides.
Junior does have at least one senior party member on his side – deputy Chrysis Pantelides – but the fear remains that the master behind-scenes operator could do to Diko what he had done to Disy before the last presidential election. Of course, in 2023 he was helped by the Machiavellian Nik, who wields no influence over Diko.
A FORMER deputy on friendly terms with Junior informs me that nobody seems aware of his utter dislike, bordering on hatred, for the Prez. The abuse he had lavishly poured on the Prez at a social meeting with the deputy was relayed to our establishment.
He had accused the man he elected Prez of being a liar, a cheat, untrustworthy, two-faced, manipulative and devious among other things. He also accused him of trying to tear Diko apart by pandering to a group of deputies with flattery and favours.
This falling out, which has been kept out of the public sphere, could have a big impact on the election. Much will depend on how Junior’s mother, who had been instrumental in Diko’s decision to back Nik II for prez, will react.
No mother would endorse the backing of a man who has been so nasty to her boy and is now trying to take control of the family party.
MY APOLOGIES, because writing about the plan to buy the Prez an armoured limousine, worth 600 grand, I had not included the comments he had made about the matter last Saturday morning, just a few hours after the publication of the story.
It is not that I did not want to put the Prez’s woeful explanation but I just did not see it. Leaving an event in Meniko, he told hacks “I was informed this morning about the intention to buy it (the limo). I did not know about this.”
His refusal to take responsibility for anything, always making lame excuses, seems to be a pathological condition he suffers from. It turned out that he did know about this, as the purchase of the 600 grand limo was approved by the council of ministers, a meeting he chaired on July 16 of this year.
Maybe he was playing Candy Crush on his phone or texting someone when the meeting approved the expenditure. And he really did not know about it.
IF HE WAS capable of taking any responsibility, for anything that generated negative publicity, he would have said that the President of a Republic with regional strategic importance needs a top of the range, armoured limo to be driven around in.
Instead, he saw the publication of the purchase, which was approved by the legislature on Monday, as conspiracy against him. “Most definitely there had been a leak by the legislature, with the obvious aim of harming the president of the republic.”
But how would it harm the Prez? He had done nothing illegal, corrupt or shady. As for the idea that the transport ministry had decided to buy a limo for the Prez without consulting him and asking if he liked the specific model, it seems too absurd for words.
RUMOURS suggest the person behind the leak was House president Annita Demetriou, who allegedly wanted to get one over the Prez.
She would suffer divine retribution for her deviousness according to the Prez, who said: “If some believe that through the leaks they will achieve their aim, I am certain that at the end of the day something like this will have a negative impact for those who undertook the initiative to do such a thing.”
Strictly speaking, they did achieve their aim as, before the end of the day, the Prez was making lame excuses about the decision and claiming, quite incredulously, that he knew nothing about the purchase which he had approved at cabinet meeting.
UNRELATED car business caused a bit of public embarrassment to poor old Androulla Vassiliou, the former European Commissioner and widow of George Vass.
After it was announced that the police, on instructions from Justice Minister Costas Fitiris, would take away the police chauffeur irrationally allocated to former so-called first ladies, unlike Ersi Christofias, who was also a victim of this cold-heartedness but chose to say nothing, Vassiliou went on telly to complain.
This was no treatment for an 83-year-old former first lady who still had to attend official events such as conferences and embassy receptions, she said on Sigma TV. Her cop was useful as he drove her to such events. “I am not going to drive around a neighbourhood to find parking to be able to go to an embassy event,” said declared.
If she cannot afford to take a taxi to embassy events – I hear the pension for former European commissioners is pretty low – perhaps we should consider raising the money through crowd-funding.
YOU HAVE to admire the resourcefulness of presidential journo Andreas Bimbishis in exaggerating the important of everything his hero Prez does.
On Thursday, previewing the short visit by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog, he wrote an article under the headline, “Herzog: why he chose to come to Cyprus and what is the geopolitical significance.”
According to diplomatic sources, consulted by the intrepid report, Herzog came Kyproulla “because he responded positively to an invitation from his Cypriot counterpart.” That is a pretty a good explanation for his visit.
Bimbishis added: “The fact that he chose to come to Cyprus and not go to another country at this given time has particular gravity and sends multiple messages, in a period when relations between Ankara and Jerusalem are on a knife edge.”
Maybe he chose to come to Cyprus because no other country invited him to visit on September 10. As for the multiple messages, Bimbishis failed to elaborate.
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