Dromolaxia and Meneou mayor indicted over Facebook post

Dromolaxia and Meneou mayor Kypros Andronikou was on Monday indicted and summoned to appear in court over a social media post, standing accused of having presented his own personal views as the views of the municipality as a whole. The post was highly critical of one of his four deputy mayors, Yiannos Ioannou, who represents the borough covering the villages of Dromolaxia and Meneou, with the municipality stretching further to the surrounding villages. It had been written in response to a 5,000-word post Ioannou had written on his own personal social media account, in which he criticised the response that he was delegated “no … specific responsibilities” by Andronikou despite being elected by the people of the two villages to the role in 2024. Ioannou had documented the various initiatives he had taken since 2024 despite not being assigned any responsibilities by Andronikou, and Andronikou responded by saying that he and the municipality’s other deputy mayors had worked together on various projects during the same period. The post was signed by three deputy mayors “Actions which deviate from this course cannot be accepted,” he said, before saying that Ioannou had, in his own post, attempted to “cultivate the impression that a single individual is the one proposing, advocating, and showing concern, while everyone else is just a passive observer”. He stressed that “self-promotion cannot take the place of collective effort”, before saying that “many of the items presented as personal ‘actions’” by Ioannou “are arbitrary and fall outside the institutional framework governing the municipality”. Additionally, he said, “most of them are simply part of the municipality’s overall functioning and day-to-day operations”. The post was signed by Andronikou as well as the municipality’s other three deputy mayors, Kiti’s Nikos Hadjimichael, Pervolia’s Costakis Tingis, and Tersefanou’s Nestoras Michael. On Monday, the indictment said that “the purpose was to present what is mentioned in the specific text as the official position of the municipality, with the aim of adversely affecting the public’s perception of [Ioannou] and overlooking his public and institutional status”. Andronikou will appear in court on November 13.