By ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
The presidential elections of 2023 will go down in history for many different reasons. They will certainly be remembered for the fact that after ten years of governance, the so-called “main contenders” for the presidency were all associates of the outgoing president and, more importantly, the opposition parties that rushed to support them managed, by their choices, to single-handedly invalidate and neutralise their hitherto fundamental narratives in opposition. The 2023 elections may go down in history for what political analysts have called the “weaning off of voters” from their parties, provided, of course, that this is also confirmed by the ballot box today. They may also be remembered for the “anti-systemic” struggle of certain candidates who neither saw the support of the “system”, nor did they hear it in living rooms proclaiming its support “in order to control the next president of the Republic”. Then again, they might also be remembered for the high levels of cliché and platitudes on display in the run-up to the elections – we’re up to here with [candidates acting like] country hicks and speaking with a strong Cypriot accent – but also for the regression to decades gone by, when political awareness was (or perhaps still is?) in its infancy – “for us, power is not everything, but if others come to power, the country will be destroyed”, as trumpeted some forty years ago by a candidate whose close associates recommended some rest, because he was suffering from… burnout. They may also be remembered for the unprecedented level of evasiveness and unwillingness to take any responsibility in the face of blatant misconduct, for the ‘populist’ mutations of certain sleek-suited candidates, for the gross underestimation of people’s intelligence, but possibly also for the fact that, for the first time, so many media people, who are otherwise committed to objectively keeping a check on power, have sided with those claiming it.
In my opinion, however, what the 2023 presidential elections mark is the definitive turning of the page on the Cyprus problem. My regular readers know that I have been and still am of the opinion that the Cyprus problem over the years has been a product of exploitation, by all parties without exception, in order to serve petty political agendas, adopting a ‘role’ and a ‘narrative’ that determined who the ‘enemy’ was, ensuring political survival while aiming to prevail over their rivals. The extent of the mockery can be revealed through history, as evidenced by the position each person took at critical decision-making moments, regardless of their role and the official narrative. Nevertheless, they always went through all face-saving exercises and in every previous election, the Cyprus problem was the subject of… tough negotiations, regardless of the fact we saw the most irregular alliances come off the back of it. Nicos Anastasiades’ term of office is coming to an end in a few months and the legacy he leaves behind as regards the Cyprus problem is its tombstone. Definitive partition, two states. So, apart from a few… romantics in one camp or the other who are still pursuing the Cyprus problem and preaching about the ‘miracle’, each as they would have it, and despite what the so-called ‘main candidates’ are proclaiming superficially, without a plan or a grip on reality, the reality is these elections demonstrate that the… “number one national problem” (!) has taken a back seat and was not a key criterion for partnerships and alliances.
Source: END OF AN ERA
