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“I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again today. I will not give anyone—anyone—the right to accuse me of corruption.” The thunderous declaration from the President of the Republic, his first since the video emerged showing his close associates negotiating with “investors” whilst Cyfield’s CEO claims they’re on the phone “like she’s his girlfriend” (I have so many questions about that), leaves precious little room for misinterpretation: the man is tragically detached from reality.
Because despite the uproar that’s erupted, the government’s spasmodic and rather contradictory responses, and the relentless fire from both opposition and coalition, the man directly concerned—the President of the bloody Republic—couldn’t even muster a fresh line. Instead, he regurgitated the same tired bollocks he trots out whenever he wants to posture about corruption. And note the phrasing: He won’t give anyone the right to accuse him of corruption. Authoritarian. Self-centred. And stale. As if the video never happened, as if we didn’t see what we saw. As if he still believes he controls the narrative.
The video, which could well be titled This is Cyprus 2: Oops They Did It Again!, naturally reveals nothing new about the procedures a prospective investor must follow to get into the fast track (middleman ⇒ local businessman ⇒ close presidential associate ⇒ donation to the First Lady’s shadowy charity). But it does cement two things: First, there are still “fixers” naive enough—ahem—that in the post-Al Jazeera era they’ll spill everything to supposed investors who haven’t even checked for hidden cameras. And second, when this particular brand of stupidity combines with rampant arrogance and absolute certainty of impunity, it creates a superstorm of corruption that sweeps the island from end to end. This is our curse. The combination of idiocy and arrogance. An absolute plague.
Yet without wanting to spoil the ending, we know perfectly well what happens next. Nothing. Zero. Nada (no, that doesn’t derive from “girlfriend”) [Editor’s note: A wordplay on the Greek word for girlfriend – filenada]. At most, brother-in-law Charalambis [Editor’s note: The author refers to the chief of staff of the President, Charalambos Charalambous, who resigned after the release of the video] gets thrown under the bus (which will make Sunday lunch with the extended family rather awkward, but it’s a necessary evil), Lakkotrypis gets booted from the Presidential Palace, and Christodoulides stops answering Chrysochoos’s calls (“now he’s like my f**king wife,” he’ll say in some future video). And we’ll all gradually return to our dreary pre-election reality with the Fidias’s and Sikou Pano’s we deserve. And you know why?
Because Christodoulides, like every all-powerful, centralising President, is too big to fail. Because a large chunk of the population swallowed the fairy tale of the “different” candidate and now can’t see corruption even if it smacks them in the head with Lakkotrypis himself.
Because the institutions supposedly fighting corruption are so riddled with holes, so discredited and degraded to a desperate degree that they’ve essentially become useless.
Because people are so desperate, so dumbed down, so misled, or just such gullible fools that they’re willing to swallow wholesale the archaic (1950s vintage) “foreign involvement” narrative—especially if it involves Russians or Turks—rather than accept that Christodoulides is his political father’s worthy son [Editor’s note: The author refers to former president Nicos Anastasiades] and the continuator of his “work” (or rather, the only piece of work that didn’t collapse spectacularly).
Because corruption at every level has been so thoroughly normalised that a large part of society is willing to turn a blind eye if the government hands out benefits, buries the Cyprus problem for good, or kicks out migrants.
Because they’ll keep doing whatever they want, shielded behind laws, regulations, and Law Office decisions, toasting the naïve fools who think they’ll punish them by voting for Fidias and Odysseas in the parliamentary elections (yes, we’re talking about that level of electoral shrewdness).
Because if a businessman claims the President of the Republic is like his “girlfriend,” guess who’s going to pay for the mess…
This article was published on 09.01.2026
Source: FORGET IT GIRLFRIEND – THERE’S NO SAVING IT THIS ONE
