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The municipal elections on Sunday are already being touted as a precursor to two key events – public support for a possible settlement in 2017 and the presidential race in 2018. The elections process itself has been downgraded to nothing more than a parade of failed wannabes who did not make it as an MP, Minister or board member of a semi-government organisation, and who had been given promises by the establishment of the ruling and opposition political parties.
Apart from a handful of potential mayors who deserve the public vote or even to be re-elected, and a rare few more who will do good work as councilors, the rest are amateurs and first-timers who are fond of having a title on their name tag.
This is, after all, the reason why so few women have been proposed as mayoral candidates and women once again account for proportionally less than the vote count. Of course, the benchmark should not be just quotas for women, because this will create a precedent for other interest groups to get in. But surely there are a few good women out there who can do a mayor’s job just as well as their male counterparts?
The election tickets so far have been unimpressive, with some potential here and there.
But it is clear that all political parties have held back their big names and sacrificed their party soldiers in these elections in order to see what their voter strength will be. According to that, they will then adapt their policy in relation to any referendum on a settlement plan, which in turn will see what each party will secure and if this gives them any hope for the presidential elections some 14 months from now.
In the meantime, the public have to suffer the stupidity of the current members of parliament who have made one gaffe after the other, the most recent being their rejection of the civil service reforms bill, slashing the privatisation commissioner’s consultancy budget and making a u-turn on the development of the Larnaca marina and port.
With this bunch of loonies running the House, no wonder there is no interest from candidates, let alone to vote in Sunday’s elections.
