“A veil of meritocracy for government appointments” was the title Democratic Rally itself chose for its statement on appointments to the semi-governmental organisations. Twenty-one appointees, it noted, hadn’t been recommended by the Advisory Council. A serious finding? Maybe. Did it come with a proposal for what should have happened instead? No.
Back when Nicos Anastasiades was in charge, AKEL made it something of a daily ritual: one statement after another, accusing and denouncing the government. Over anything. All it took was a stray piece of information or a news report landing on their desk, and out came the press release.
That role, AKEL’s old role under Anastasiades, has now been picked up by Democratic Rally. From morning to evening, out come the statements, all built around the same demand: the government must answer for this or explain that. What AKEL was to Anastasiades, DISY now is to Christodoulides.
The latest example, and the one that’s really cranked up the volume, is the appointments to the boards of the semi-governmental organisations. The opposition double act of Democratic Rally and AKEL put out statements (which the government dismissed as near-identical) demanding explanations for the choices made outside the Advisory Council, and more broadly, whether the President and government had a hand in them.
Given that we’re now well and truly into election season, it isn’t just the government whose every move should be read through the lens of 2028. The opposition deserves the same scrutiny. When the opposition, as currently voiced from Pindarou, issues statements from the “shadow cabinet” Annita Demetriou likes to convene, a tone of outrage on its own isn’t enough. From a political camp that wants, first, to settle scores with Nikos Christodoulides by any means necessary, and second, to claw back power it essentially regards as its own, the public expects actual policy answers.
Take the semi-governmental appointments. If Christodoulides failed to deliver on his promises, as DISY’s own statement claims, then where’s Pindarou’s alternative? What exactly are they proposing? Go back to the old system for picking these boards? And from AKEL, which also has half an eye on power, if with rather less urgency, we haven’t seen anything concrete either.
Before the appointments came the reshuffle. In the run-up to those government decisions, we saw the same aggressive posturing from Pindarou (another sign, as noted, of the hunger to reclaim power). The main voice behind the attacks: deputy leader Yiannis Karousos.
But the moment party leadership saw the “strong-arm” tactics one of its deputy leaders was running weren’t helping, they backed off fast and left him exposed, only to recast him after the fact as merely “useful.” Karousos wasn’t some “lone wolf,” whatever the party’s top brass now wants people to believe. He was operating entirely within the spirit of conversations that had already taken place.
DISY’s hunger for power runs so deep that a softer approach was never on the table. There will always be a “useful” someone found to play the heavy.
The 78 per cent, eight appointees out of ten, was never once challenged by Pindarou. It didn’t need to be. The point was never to fix the 22 per cent. It was to kick up enough dust for the party leader to disappear behind it. With that as the toolkit for 2028: a hunger for power, and not a single policy proposal, it remains to be seen whether that’s enough.
