Cyprus presidential aide quits over nepotism claims

One of the closest aides to Cyprus President Demetris Christofias quit on Tuesday after it emerged that a member of his staff had tried to intervene in army appointments, the government said.
Christofias accepted the resignation of Vassos Georgiou, who had been director of his office and a close aide from the days when Christofias was president of parliament. It was the second nepotism-related embarrassment to the centre-left government in two months.
A member of his staff had made requests over army appointments without Georgiou's knowledge, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said, adding that the requests were not satisfied.
"Regardless of the fact that the staffer acted on her own initiative without informing her political superior… Vassos Georgiou submitted his resignation to the president," he said.
ANT TV1 had broadcast a report that Georgiou's office had attempted to intervene in army appointments and transfers. Army service for 18 year old men is compulsory in Cyprus and authorities are normally loath to show flexibility to the rule but claims of nepotism are frequent in the service. Like all previous administrations, Christofias, elected in 2008, has vowed to root out nepotism.
"It's endemic," said University of Nicosia professor Hubert Faustmann, who has written extensively on the subject. "It is a typical symptom of closed societies where there is highly personalised interaction between power holders and citizens."
In June, the main party in government was embarrassed by an email mistakenly sent to journalists which contained a list of supporters' demands, from seeking a top post in customs to complaining about a job lost as a cleaner at the US embassy.
Another party supporter and chairman of the pro-communist Omonia FC, Miltiades Neophytou, has also been in the news recently over the number of construction contracts he had won in recent years, a charge the government tried to dismiss by publishing the list of all contracts awarded to two ministries in the past four years.