Last week, citizens watched in stunned disbelief as the justice system appeared to collapse in real time before their eyes. Makarios Drousiotis came out with extraordinary allegations: sweeping claims of corruption involving judges, abuse of power, paedophilia, money laundering. And almost the entire country believed him. Convinced, beyond any doubt, that every word of it was true.
Into this febrile atmosphere stepped DISY, rushing out a statement that pre-empted any investigation and turned its fire on rival parties, accusing them of playing the dangerous game of smearing people and institutions — "seeking to provoke chaos and destabilise the country." But on what basis did DISY conclude that Drousiotis's allegations are false? And more to the point: how is it that their first instinct was to worry about the destabilising effect of the revelations, rather than about whether any of it is actually true? Because if even half of what Drousiotis alleges is accurate, we are no longer talking about chaos. We are talking about the complete disintegration of the rule of law. A mafia state.
Of course Drousiotis must substantiate his claims. Everyone must wait to see whether they hold up. But I think the more pressing question, one that should trouble everyone, DISY included, is not whether Drousiotis can prove his case. It is the sheer ease with which the entire country was ready to believe him. That tells you everything about the mood that has taken hold in Cyprus. When the overwhelming majority of the public is already convinced that judges are bent, that the Attorney General is under surveillance, that the state operates like an underworld — then one cannot simply focus on whether the evidence exists. What that widespread, instinctive belief confirms is that our institutions, taken as a whole, have been utterly discredited. That is what should be alarming everyone. The fact that public trust has fallen so low that people are ready to believe even the most outlandish accusations the moment they are made.
And the institutions are far from blameless. This image — that Cyprus is capable of anything — did not spring from nowhere. It is grounded in their own record. It has been built, piece by piece, by the way they have handled scandals and allegations. By the way they have functioned politically. By the way they have responded or, more accurately, failed to respond when it mattered.
If people today are willing to believe the most shocking allegations, the system handed them that right. The current government did it with the videogate scandal and its stubborn refusal to disclose the donors to the First Lady's fund. The previous government did it with a string of scandals and a remarkable absence of anyone ever being found guilty. DISY did it when, having demanded daily that the donors to that fund be made public, it then voted down a parliamentary resolution requiring exactly that. And if people believe that allegations — even unproven ones — reflect reality, that too is a right the institutions forged for them, through the way they managed everything that came before. The courts, with rulings like those in the Cooperative Bank and Eliadis cases. The Attorney General's office, with its handling of the black van affair, the Katsounotos case, the Syllouris-Giovani matter. The entire system, through its response, or non-response, to scandal after scandal. It has brought an entire society to the conclusion that the greatest threat to this country is the very institutions that exist to protect it.
The profound collapse Cyprus is living through has less to do with Makarios Drousiotis, or his revelations, or even the most withering criticism of state institutions. It has everything to do with how those institutions have conducted themselves over years. They are the ones who drove people to the conviction that they are living in a failed state.
What makes the allegations feel real to the public is not Drousiotis. It is the state itself. Its own conduct is what transforms accusation into apparent fact. Because in public life, "truth" is to a large extent shaped by what people believe — and what people believe is shaped by what institutions project. And what Cyprus's institutions project does not merely raise questions about how they function. It raises questions about the survival of democracy itself. Democracy runs on trust — on the basic confidence that those in positions of power are there to serve the common good. The moment that confidence hardens into its opposite, into the certainty that they are there for anything but, Drousiotis becomes the voice of the crowd. And every whisper, every allegation, becomes its own truth.
This article was first published on 05.04.2026
Source: DROUSIOTIS AS SOCIETY'S ECHO
