Tales from the coffeeshop: A week of suicide bomber tactics in politics

YOU HAVE to admire Averof Neophytou’s suicide bomber tactics with which he cleared the way for his presidential candidacy. It has not been secured yet, as he will stand against Disy MP Giorgos Pamborides for the party’s backing – and possibly other no-hope hopefuls – but with his main challenger Annita Demetriou, the party leader, out of the race he will fancy his chances. Averof strapped himself with political explosives, publicly declared that he was prepared to detonate them, blowing up the party and wrecking the chances of the official Disy candidate making it into the second round of the presidential elections. It would have been the end of his political career as well, but he would have gone out with a bang. In effect, he was following the example set by Nik II before the last election, by announcing he would stand as an independent and not seek to stand in the party’s candidacy election, which Annita was favourite to win. He would have no chance of being elected as an independent, but by taking a share of the Disy vote – plus the share the Prez would take – he would have ensured the party’s official candidate would finish third in the first Sunday of voting. WAS THE suicide bomber act a bluff? Last week Averof, reportedly, sought all the party documents that had to be submitted for the Disy candidacy election and this was before Annita had decided to withdraw. Perhaps he knew what was coming. The wily Averof had been working on Annita, using third persons. The man acting as his agent was the well-known hanger-on of the Clerides government Vasilis Rologis, a member of the Nicosia salons, who had been lobbying newspapers for support. Rologis, Averof and a leading Nicosia doctor also dined with Annita recently – this was not the notorious fish tavern meeting mentioned by Averof – and Rologis, being a gentleman, politely asked her not to stand because she was young and her turn would come. Our supergrass at Disy informs us that no such politeness was displayed by Frixos Koulermos, a Disy grandee, who owns the pro-Disy paper Alithia and Omega TV station. Koulermos had been pressuring Annita to make way for Averof for several weeks now, indicating that if she stood, the support of Alithia and Omega was not guaranteed. I suspect Koulermos’ powers of persuasion were more effective than those of Rologis who is not in the former’s hard man league. THE FISH tavern at which the dinner brought up by Averof took place, was Pyxida, although I was under the impression that Annita, like Nik I, was a fan of Paragadi. This was the dinner attended by Annita, Averof and the owner of Politis newspaper as well at its editor-in-chief, just after May’s parliamentary elections. Averof said that he was asked to help Annita secure the presidency of the House and in exchange she would back his presidential candidacy. Annita insisted that she had never reached such an agreement at the fish tavern. What had actually happened was that Politis proprietor Chris Panayiotou, on the night the results of the parliamentary elections were announced, told Averof that Annita could make way for him in the presidential elections, so long as opinion polls indicated he was electable. No promise had been made to Averof by Annita, but Panayiotou had mentioned the possibility to the man from Argaka, but not at a fish tavern. This raises the nightmare scenario of having two Paphites as the presidential candidates. Perhaps the nice Nicosia boy Ethnarch Junior will decide to stand and try and break the sinister Paphos stranglehold on the presidency. Averof and his targets PAMBORIDES, who is not inclined to pull his punches in his frequent TV appearances, took great exception to the reports about the Politis proprietor’s involvement in the election horse-trading on behalf of Annita. “It cannot be acceptable for politicians to be involved with publishers and journalists for the promotion of their personal goals,” he pontificated, making you wonder where he has been living all these years. Phil operates as the semi-official mouthpiece of the Prez. Perhaps he was also referring to Koulermos, whose name had not been heard at the time. By Thursday afternoon, however, everyone was talking about him and claiming he had been instrumental in Annita’s decision to withdraw. He had been present at Annita’s meeting with Averof and subsequently with Pamborides. Stung by the reports, Koulermos issued a statement claiming that there had been no discussion with Annita, who informed them that she would withdraw for the sake of the party’s unity. “Of course we spoke and exchanged views and ideas, but only the politically immoral and malicious could interpret this as blackmail, pressures, supervision and ‘bitchiness’,” said Koulermos’ statement. Strictly speaking, this was true. According to Pamborides, Koulermos asked him “to give up his effort,” when they had left Annita’s office. IN FAIRNESS, Koulermos is old school Disy – a committed supporter of a settlement of the Cyprob who has stayed true to the Clerides legacy. And Averof is the only active Greek Cypriot politician that is a committed supporter of a settlement. Not for him the cheap words of defiance and the hollow patriotic rhetoric which are back in fashion thanks to Prezniktwo’s return to the Spy Kyp years. Of course, even in the highly unlikely event that Koulermos gets Averof elected it may be too late for a settlement. Nik II, with his brave words and zero action on the Cyprob, seems to have partition locked. He is happy, his backers at Elam are happy and the Turks are happy, so why do anything? MEANWHILE, the presidential palace and its cheerleaders are already preparing for the second round of the presidential election, when the Prez might face the Akel candidate, who has not been chosen yet, rather than Averof. This is why at every opportunity they attack the alleged similarity of Akel and Disy positions, expressing shock-horror at the possibility the two could occasionally be on the same page. They are rallying Disy support against a possible Akel candidate in the second Sunday run-off from now. The Prez’s sidekick, Andreas Papacharalambous, who was elected to parliament with Elam, has already begun the battle against the red peril. He said: “One is the red line, the red candidate, beyond that we cannot rule out anything.” Presniktwo continues to get others to attack Akel GETTING others to attack Akel was always part of the Prez’s modus operandi. When he was Nik I’s government spokesman he never responded to Akel’s criticism of the government. When the boss wanted a response, he would always get Viktoras Papadopoulos, who acted as his heavy, to give a statement. A dedicated careerist, even back then, he was thinking about his presidential candidacy and did not want to personally upset the comrades, some of whom – even a small percentage – could vote for him. Now he has found the balls to attack Akel because he fears the biggest threat to his re-election would be the red candidate. TWICE the proposal for transferring Limassol’s iconic Rialto theatre, which was under state ownership, to the Limassol municipality was made but it was not approved. Everyone wondered why, considering the government did not want the responsibility of running a theatre, which ended up in its hands after the coop central bank that owned it went bankrupt. The reason. The controlling perm sec of the deputy ministry of culture, Giorgos Papageorgiou, is said to have vetoed the move. Not that he has power to do this, but his wife, the presidential under-secretary and super-minister, Irini Piki, does. And she seems to have done exactly that to keep her egomaniacal hubby happy by taking one of his toys away. EXPLAINING her decision to withdraw, Annita said she was not bitter. It was just that she believed that the leader of the party had to participate in the internal election process. But when subsequently she followed “the discussions, the conspiracy theorising, the cannibalism, that were damaging the party,” she came to the conclusion that her withdrawal would contribute to restoring unity. We would like Annita to name some of the cannibals, or to be more precise, the Disy members engaging in cannibalism. Who are the Disy cannibals? We demand to know. .