Many say Cypriots voted conservatively last Sunday because they fear change and prefer, conveniently enough, what they know, what they see, what they have grown used to — what does not frighten them.
This column does not agree that the electorate, even if we treat it as a single body, failed to dare something new. Nothing new, in the political sense, was actually proposed. And that is one reason why so many thousands continue to refuse to vote. Although the number of those who are genuinely politically abstinent is far smaller than the gap between registered voters and those who actually cast a ballot suggests.
Perhaps the new House and the current government — Interior Minister, Chief Returning Officer, this means you — may finally decide to take this very serious issue seriously, an issue that also touches the equally serious problem of the unreliable Population Registry.
President of the Republic, should you ever happen to read these lines, ask the interior minister, when you have time — so he can ask the permanent secretary, who can then ask the people further down the chain; yes, it will take time, fine — how it is possible for the state’s official records to list our home addresses in one place, while the polling stations you keep sending us to every so often bear no relation to them. And how, when we tell you, “my son, I live in Limassol, look at what the Population Registry says”, the answer is that I must submit an application to vote in Limassol and get it signed by some mukhtar who neither knows me nor I him.
As if I am going to file an application and go chasing everyone. Carry on having one thing written at the Licensing Authority, another at the Tax Department, another at the municipality, another at the other municipality, and something else again at the Population Registry. Truth be told, it is a thousand times better for the refugee estate that raised us to get its little something from the state grant than for municipality X or Y to get it. And let us burn a bit more petrol every time there is an election.
But let us suppose I do submit an application to the Interior Ministry for a change of address and… order is restored. What about the person who lives permanently in England, Wales, Ireland, Australia, Greece, America or South Africa, and is registered on the electoral roll as though they live in Cyprus — which is what the law requires for registration? Will they bother updating their details if doing so might knock them out of what we call the electorate?
They will not be knocked out, because we have a law that sets out the conditions for entering the electoral roll, but not the conditions for leaving it. Once you are in, you stay in.
President, Interior Minister: who, finally, is on the electoral roll without being an active citizen of this state? Those people — these specific people, who make up a large part of this supposed political abstention — would not, by law, be entitled to register if a law were passed tomorrow requiring all of us to sign up to the electoral roll from scratch.
And that is before we get to the dead, who take years to be removed, which is why we still have voters aged 120 and 130. “We’ll never die, you bastard undertakers,” as Vasilis says.
Yes, nothing new was proposed to us in these elections either. With one small exception, if I may. Volt. It was, yes, something new, ambitious, organised, dignified, interesting, promising, useful. It did not speak to this column, but that is irrelevant and beside the point.
Its first appearance in parliamentary elections happened to coincide with the debut of Alma, Direct Democracy and some other electoral contraptions I cannot remember today — and hope not to remember any time soon.
It also coincided with a mood, fuelled in part by one poll after another, that we were heading for a general strip-out and whatever came crashing down, so be it. And it coincided as well with the pursuit of a seat by a swarm of out-of-nowhere characters who, after the initial joke and the likes on social media, began to worry citizens who want and need at least the bare minimum of seriousness, along with a visible and convincing capacity to assume responsibility from the benches of parliament in difficult times for the country and society.
This does not concern all voters. But this column believes that, through the fault of the established parties, we have reached the point where we no longer ask for much whenever we go to the polls.
And Sunday probably showed it. We no longer look today to social justice, nor to a solution of the Cyprus problem, nor to cheap — and humble — housing for all. They call it social housing too, but when you say that to them, they tell you it will shrink the fiscal space, meaning Makis’s little cushions. Nor do we look to wages that can guarantee decent living standards for everyone who works — and if not, why work? Nor to cheap energy that would prevent energy poverty.
The electorate, against everything it had been warning through the polls for months, chose the lowest possible risk. That is not conservatism. It is survival.
Today, however, with this election result, the parties that entered parliament must think about how we move forward.
The election of the president of the House does not carry the political significance party leaderships attach to it. Annita Demetriou was a very good president of the House. And she was generous to AKEL too: “Colleagues, we voted, it is over, you do not have the right to speak. Yes, Mr. Loukaides, we are listening.”
We will get through this five-year term perfectly well with the very lovely and very serious Annita. The rest is a waste of time. Nikolas said it too: the election of the president of the House is not linked to the 2028 presidential election. Fine. Let us move on, and we’ll see.
