How many times have we thought the button’s been pressed—that’s it, no more, it can’t go on. After this (whatever this was), something will happen, something will change. We can’t just carry on as though nothing’s happened.
And yet we do. Another firework explodes over our heads, and we scramble to work out who lit the fuse and why. Did the assistant attorney general actually want to resign? Was he trying to expose the Police, the Prisons, the Anti-Corruption Authority, the Justice Minister? Was he angling for the president to call him indispensable? Or was it the president who wanted to expose him? Or were the two of them working in tandem to stitch up everyone else?
Public life increasingly resembles a crime thriller: Who killed Thanasis Nicolaou? Who’s responsible for the 2012 road accident that killed 17-year-old Andreas Loizou? What’s going on with the prison documents? Who blew them up at the Crans Montana? What’s the story with this bloody cable—who benefits if it goes ahead, who loses, and what’s the game between them? Mystery upon mystery, all waiting to be solved.
The latest chapter in our crime novel: Savvas Angelides’ resignation from the post of assistant attorney general. Except he hasn’t actually resigned. Hasn’t confirmed it, hasn’t denied it. And the president? He’s leaving it up to him.
If he wants to quit, fine—he can (at least that’s what he says publicly; God knows what he’s saying behind closed doors about Angelides being irreplaceable).
If he doesn’t want to quit, well, we’ll accept it. We’ll endure it. He’s free to do as he pleases. He can stay in post with three or four complaints against him lodged with the Anti-Corruption Authority, his reputation in tatters with the public, vulnerable to blackmail from the underworld. And everything’s fine.
The president can’t intervene—it’s an independent institution. So we carry on where we left off.
Where was that again? At a point where criminals run the show from the very prisons where they were sent to be punished and reformed. At a point where a fire burned through 125 square kilometres. At a point where the reservoirs ran dry and the only practical action we witnessed was parading an icon of the Virgin Mary around—which, yes, performed its miracle, but disaster struck anyway. At a point where the education sector is in chaos yet again, where criminals and ordinary citizens alike can kill with impunity on our streets, where foreign embassies can issue directives...
But everything’s fine, and everyone’s still at their positions. Convinced they’re indispensable.
