DIKO votes to go

Government coalition partner DIKO on Friday voted to abandon the ruling alliance, citing disagreement with the terms for the resumption of negotiations on the Cyprus issue, and accusing President Nicos Anastasiades of violating his pre-election pledges that helped secure the party’s support, the Cyprus Mail reports.

The decision calls for the resignation of DIKO’s four ministers and three heads of semi-governmental organisations by March 4, but will be brought before the party’s Central Committee on Wednesday for final approval.

Reports suggested that ministers were given until March 4 to resign so that they can collect the bonus they are entitled to when they complete one year in office, which falls on March 1. The reports sparked outrage, with people calling on Anastasiades to reshuffle his cabinet immediately.

According to the Cyprus Mail, none of the four want to leave the cabinet and on Friday had voted in favour of staying in the coalition. The paper adds that at least one, Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis, would step down immediately if the decision is endorsed on Wednesday. Lakkotrypis, who is seen as an extremely competent and popular minister, tweeted that “having experienced last night’s [Friday’s] events, my options are now clear”.

The other ministers were silent yesterday on the bonus issue, neither denying nor confirming they would follow the energy minster’s example and resign immediately. But it was reported that during Friday’s eight-hour marathon they had accused the executive, and DIKO leader Nicolas Papadopoulos, of making them a target of public ridicule by suggesting the date in question. Health Minister, Petros Petrides, talking on Astra Radio, spoke of “this public humiliation”, which had made them all out to be money-hungry. He accused Papadopoulos of trying to pass a motion during the meeting that would forbid the four ministers from voting on whether DIKO should remain in the coalition. DIKO spokeswoman Christiana Erotokritou had refused to comment on the accusations, the radio station reported.

Addressing DIKO’s body’s members, Papadopoulos unleashed an all-out attack on Anastasiades and listed the reasons why he considered the agreement for the resumption of talks unacceptable. He then moved that DIKO exit the government coalition and its four ministers tender their resignations. Speeches by members, some supporting the proposal and others voicing dissent, were followed by prolonged discussion, before Papadopoulos’s motion passed with 22 votes in favour, 15 against and 2 abstentions.

According to Papadopoulos’s interpretation, the joint statement dissolves the Republic of Cyprus and implies the ‘virgin birth’ of a new state, concedes separate sovereignty to Turkish Cypriots, reintroduces the concept of dual citizenship, violates Anastasiades’s campaign-trail commitment that the basis for the resumption of talks must be “clearly defined”, and revives the philosophy pervading the Annan Plan. “Unfortunately, after this agreement, negotiations are starting  from a very poor base which will  lead with mathematical precision to a very bad solution.,” the party’s statement said.

Earlier in the day, Papadopoulos had met with former DIKO leader Marios Garoyian, who cited political stability, national unity, and party interest as arguments in favour of DIKO remaining in the ruling coalition, but only after Anastasiades committed to his interpretation of the joint communiqué as a benchmark for the resumed talks. Garoyian’s conciliatory suggestion was promptly met with outright rejection by an unbending Papadopoulos.

Garoyian also addressed the Executive Office, arguing that DIKO must remain close to the President so that it can shape developments. He denied that the pre-election deal he made with Anastasiades had been violated and subtly assigned self-interest to Papadopoulos’s manoeuvring.

“I feel that we must all set our personal strategies aside and restrain our personal ambitions”, he said, adding that “these cannot be acceptable when they clash with national priorities.”

DIKO’s deputy head Marcos Kyprianou also seems to be of the opinion that the party shouldn’t act hastily in withdrawing. Reports say that in his speech before the executive, Kyprianou called for a meeting with Anastasiades to discuss his intentions on the Cyprus problem.

Also, it is clear that since the second phase of the DIKO elections, Papadopoulos’ control over the central committee is far from tight. An overthrow of his proposal on Wednesday would be a major defeat for the new party president and call his leadership into serious doubt.

2. Good riddance

The Cyprus Mail in its editorial welcomes DIKO’s decision to leave the government, as “the best gift President Anastasiades could have received” on the completion of his first year in office. He has been set free from the shackles of an alliance partner that has always championed the politics of negativity and hollow rhetoric, disguised as high principles and patriotism, the paper says.

Anastasiades is now free to focus on the pursuit of a Cyprus settlement, without pandering to the DIKO leadership and wasting his time on finding ways of keeping it on side. He will no longer have to tread carefully for fear of angering Nicolas Papadopoulos whose only objective on the Cyprus problem is maintaining the status quo.

Papadopoulos’ most meaningful proposal to Anastasiades, before the agreement on the joint declaration, was that he should engage in talks that led nowhere. He wanted talks for the sake of talks, like those conducted during the presidency of his father, when the negotiators of the two sides had more than 100 meetings without agreeing anything. The DIKO chief wanted the president to deceive the Greek Cypriots, the UN, the EU, the US and the Turkish side by engaging in talks he would have no intention of ever concluding.

Now, the paper continues, Anastasiades does not even have to pretend to be interested in these absurd suggestions. He will also have finally realised that his oft-repeated plan for collective decision-making on the Cyprus problem by the National Council is totally unrealistic. This could never have happened with parties like DIKO and EDEK whose only reason for existing is to utter hard-line platitudes and oppose any attempt to solve the Cyprus problem.

The question that Anastasiades should ask is how many people do the naysayers actually represent? They do make a lot of noise because there is quite a few of them but that in no way means they reflect majority opinion. Electorally speaking, the hard-line parties do not represent more than a third of the voters, assuming all their supporters were opposed to a settlement, which, as the split in DIKO’s executive office shows, is not guaranteed.

Papadopoulos may have acted rashly in taking DIKO out of the government, but it was the right thing to do. His party could not have remained the junior partner of an alliance that was sincerely committed to a settlement. Now it can step up its anti-settlement rhetoric, carry on calling Anastasiades a liar and arguing in favour of partition, which is what opposition to the peace process means.

As for Anastasiades, he should allow DIKO and the rest of the hard-liners to continue their negative rhetoric, because it exposes their political bankruptcy. The fact is that they have nothing constructive or pragmatic to offer as an alternative to negotiations and an increasing number of people are becoming aware of this. All the alternatives – from the unyielding struggle to the European solution via the ECHR – to the peace process proposed by the rejectionist camp have been exposed as the fantasies they were.

There are no more false hopes to offer an increasingly sceptical public. The only road ahead is the one leading to a settlement and with DIKO quitting the government there will be nothing holding Anastasiades back, the paper concludes.

3. We are at a crucial point where we must understand each other

Turkish Cypriot negotiator Kudret Ozersay in an interview in Politis today said the only reason he became involved in the talks now was that he doesn’t want anyone in the future, Greek or Turkish Cypriot, to have to go through what he went through in his life.

He said he values openness and being frank with the people and prefers to share as much information as he possibly can with the people. “It’s easy to be a populist and stoke the people’s fears rather than preparing them for a solution.”

“Someone told me the other day,” he added “we don’t want to be displaced again. I understand his concern because I too am displaced. But I told him that the solution will not just reflect our own concerns. There are others on this island who have also been affected. I am one of them. I was displaced when I was six months old, I lost my father, I lost my property. So I can understand the concerns of a Greek Cypriot. We are at a crucial point where we have to understand each other.”

He says that as long as the two communities believe that the status quo is a viable option and that it suits us, we will never be able to come to a solution.

“This situation doesn’t lead anywhere,” he said adding that he wasn’t sure to what extent the Greek Cypriots had changed since 2004. In view of the fact that the government is considered legal by the international community, they can exploit the island’s natural resources and since it can become a member of the EU, why should it want to change the status quo? 

He said he felt things were different this time because there were two right wing leaders who might be better able to persuade their communities to accept a solution, while at the same time there was also an increased interest on behalf of the international community that might encourage the two sides to reach an agreement.

As regards the joint statement, he said it seems there are different interpretations of it, however, we must not get stuck on a one and a half page document, we must go forwards.

“The joint statement has given a new momentum to the process which we must take advantage of,” he added.

He said that a solution would bring many benefits to the Turkish Cypriot community whose institutions are not recognised internationally. At best there might in the future be a situation whereby they are accepted internationally but not recognised, so the Turkish Cypriots are being excluded from international law something that is very sad to see happening in the 21^st century as it is important for a society to follow international norms and to be controlled by the international community.

“The emphasis on bizonality is often misconstrued by the Greek Cypriots who believe that this is something that Turkey wants,” he said. “In actual fact it relates to the concerns of the Turkish Cypriots for their own security. Someone may agree or disagree with this concern, but that’s how they feel, and this must be understood, in the same way that I understand the concerns of the Greek Cypriot community about Turkey. Things happened in ’63 and ’74 that cannot change, but we must face the fears that were created.”

Asked to comment on a statement by the Kyrenia mayor-in-exile, Glavcos Kariolou that he would live in Kyrenia under Turkish Cypriot administration and if he would, for example, take up an academic post in a university in the Greek Cypriot side, Mr Ozersay said that the right to work on either side will be respected, but there might be some restrictions as regards permanent settlement.

He said the main issue at the moment was whether the Greek Cypriot side accepts the document on convergences or whether we should start from scratch.

“I will negotiate differently if they accept them and differently if the Greek Cypriot side wants to make changes, because then I will ask for other things in exchange too,” he stressed. “They might want to put down a tougher proposal on the table, but if they are more flexible then I might make concessions elsewhere.”

“We’ve had a failed state, a marriage in which we lived in the same house for three years and which then failed. We can’t say we got properly divorced, rather we’ve been living apart. We live elsewhere and you’ve taken over the house. What’s interesting though, is that we have a large family of relatives who want very much to bring us together again. This time, they believe, the marriage may work,” he said.

“In order for us to create a new federation we must take the fear and pain of the past into account on both sides,” he added. “And at least from the part of the Turkish Cypriots we cannot have the same relationship again. It’s got to be different.”

As there is no history of power sharing at the moment, we will have to create it on paper first and then try to develop it. “It will be very hard work. It isn’t going to be easy. But it’s worth a try.”

Concluding he said that the emphasis must be on respecting the identity of each citizen. “In the 21^st century this identity is not something that you can describe, it’s what you feel. That’s why it’s important that we aim at establishing objective criteria, such as citizenship, internal citizenship, residency.”