The President should have got involved, even if it wasn’t his call

Opinion financeNikos Christodoulidespresident The President should have got involved, even if it wasn’t his call Triths Limoyzina Relevant News The President should have got involved, even if it wasn’t his call 8 September 2026 An AfD warning for Germany: understanding the Saxony-Anhalt Vote 8 September 2026 Electricity interconnector cost to far exceed €1.9bn, MPs told 8 September 2026 Aristos Michaelides 8 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber When €600,000 buys two houses to shelter two families for life, or three houses, or three or four flats, it starts to look a bit rich spending the same money on a car you’ll trade in within four or five years. Doesn’t matter how armour-plated it is, who’s driving it, or whose signature is on the decision. And yet the public row over the President’s car has taken a strange turn. Did he know or didn’t he? Did the story leak from Parliament? Did someone spill classified details about presidential security? All of that matters, sure, but it’s not the point. For me, the real problem is this: the President himself. Nikos Christodoulides, of all people (a man who doesn’t let security concerns keep him off the terraces at football matches, who trades on being the “people’s President”) couldn’t be bothered to care what the car cost. Decisions like this, he said, are security matters, handled by the relevant state services, no presidential involvement required. Fine, maybe he left it to the professionals and stayed out of it. But he shouldn’t have. He should have asked questions. Demanded answers. Wanted to see the numbers. So when the proposal landed on the Cabinet table and he clapped eyes on it, did €595,000 just seem reasonable to him, because the “relevant state services” said so? Didn’t he think to ask how the presidential car’s price tag rocketed to nearly €600,000 (give or take a few grand) when the last one cost €258,850 back in 2019? Has the cost doubled, or has the security? And if it’s security, why does it need doubling now? Are Christodoulides and whoever inherits this car in 2028 in more danger than Nicos Anastasiades ever was? Does that really call for more armour? We all accept, or we should, that a President needs a safe car to travel in, and that there are people in the state whose job it is to decide that. Journalists shouldn’t be sticking their oar in. Neither should politicians. And neither, as Christodoulides himself rightly said, should the President. But when a price tag is this politically toxic, the President has a duty to get involved, not wash his hands of it. Even if the process was identical to the one his two predecessors used. In his first statement, last Saturday, the President said he had no idea. “I found out this morning from the press about this intention to buy it. I didn’t know anything about it.” His words couldn’t have been plainer. He didn’t know. He heard it from the news. Then, after a weekend of nonstop chatter, once it came out that this was actually a decision of the very Cabinet he chairs, his people were suddenly clarifying yesterday that he’d meant something else entirely. What he’d really meant, apparently, was that he didn’t know the technical specs and requirements of the vehicle. Well, that’s not exactly the strongest save! Because his own words were crystal clear, in that favourite phrase of his. He didn’t know about the purchase, and he found out from the press on Saturday morning. And that’s what really grates: it drags attention away from the cost of a car and straight onto the President’s credibility. Not that the parties come out of this looking any better, mind you. All that noise, all that outrage, and then they trot into Parliament yesterday and wave the purchase through, nod the funding through, no further questions asked. Some debate that turned out to be! Were they given explanations that satisfied them? Maybe. But whose fault is it that the public are, once again, stuck arguing about a non-issue? Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News An AfD warning for Germany: understanding the Saxony-Anhalt Vote Electricity interconnector cost to far exceed €1.9bn, MPs told Cyprus picks “Hold Onto Me” as official Oscar entry Don Quixote ballet with a European ballet company on the stage of Paphos Medieval Castle S&P Global Ratings revises Freedom24 outlook to positive, highlighting the group’s diversified earnings and strong capitalisation 48-year-old changes plea, admits killing his father Geopolitical weight behind the Egypt summit Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.