Politis publisher Chris Panayiotou has said no deal on the 2028 presidential elections was made at a dinner he attended with Averof Neofytou and Annita Demetriou. He accused the former DISY leader of turning a private conversation into a weapon for his own candidacy.
“The attempt to present a dinner as an agreement on the 2028 presidential elections is laughable, to say the least. There was no such agreement, and there could not have been. Who could really commit an entire party over a plate of food?” Panayiotou said in a statement addressed to Neofytou.
Neofytou announced his 2028 presidential candidacy on Sunday. The following day, he said on the philenews vidcast that he had been promised over dinner that DISY would unite behind his presidential bid.
In return, he said, he was asked to help DISY leader Demetriou win re-election as House president. He said the promise came from the person he described as Demetriou’s closest associate, at a Nicosia fish tavern before the parliamentary elections, with Demetriou present. He later said the person was not a politician.
Politis director Dionysis Dionysiou was also at the dinner. Panayiotou said that in almost two years as the newspaper’s publisher he had met party leaders to talk about the Cyprus problem, the economy, politics and other issues facing the country, and that this meeting was no different. He said the same had happened when he met the President of the Republic, the general secretary of AKEL, the president of DIKO and many other politicians and diplomats.
“Your choice yesterday was a great disappointment,” he said, addressing Neofytou directly. “Taking a private conversation and turning it into a weapon for your personal candidacy is pettiness. It does not show strength. It shows how low you are willing to sink when your plans don’t work out.”
Panayiotou said he would not reveal what was said off the record. “I keep my word even when the other person does not respect his own. But be sure of one thing: you will not use my name to write history the way it suits you,” he said.
Demetriou announced on Monday that she would seek DISY’s nomination for the presidential elections.
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